¿Mayúsculas?

[irmamar]

I'm writing a comment about the Thirteen Colonies. I want to write the following:

This document was signed by the delegates of the thirteen colonies.

I think that if I write "thirteen colonies" I am referring to the thirteen delegates, one from each colony. But if I write "Thirteen Colonies", with capital letters, this could be understood as an indeterminated number of delegates representing all of them the Thirteen Colonies.

I might be wrong, but I think that lower case letters express better what I want to say.

Thanks.

[wrholt]

If you write "Thirteen Colonies", then you are referring to the set of colonies as one group and to one delegation that represents the group. The delegation contains at least 2 members, but it may have any number larger than 1.

If you write "thirteen colonies", the meaning may be ambiguous. It could be understood the same way as if you had written "Thirteen Colonies", or it could be understood as referring to each colony individually and to each colony's delegation. In my opinion, the second case is the natural interpretation unless the context clearly suggests otherwise. In the second case the size of each delegation is at least one, but it is not limited unless the context has already established a limit. (You might be thinking of 1 delegate per colony, but without context your sentence does not automatically imply only 1 delegate per colony.)

[Elaina]

Originally Posted by wrholt

If you write "Thirteen Colonies", then you are referring to the set of colonies as one group and to one delegation that represents the group. The delegation contains at least 2 members, but it may have any number larger than 1.

If you write "thirteen colonies", the meaning may be ambiguous. It could be understood the same way as if you had written "Thirteen Colonies", or it could be understood as referring to each colony individually and to each colony's delegation. In my opinion, the second case is the natural interpretation unless the context clearly suggests otherwise. In the second case the size of each delegation is at least one, but it is not limited unless the context has already established a limit. (You might be thinking of 1 delegate per colony, but without context your sentence does not automatically imply only 1 delegate per colony.)

Wow.....I'm impressed. I moonlight giving citizenship classes and I feel I just learned something new about the original thirteen colonies.

Fascinating! Thanks for the information.

I am enlightened......

[irmamar]

Thanks! Yes I thought one delegate per colony; of course, there can be more than one.

And yes, I wanted to refer to each colony individually, although that can seem ambiguous. I want to make clear that they didn't go to the meeting as a set, but each colony individually. There might have been one colony against the document (yes, I know that that didn't happen, but there could be the possibility ). So, I'll leave it with lower case letters.

Thank you again.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by irmamar

, I'll leave it with lower case letters.

Apparently, lower case = caja baja, and upper case = caja alta, but I don't understand what these are.

Meanwhile, I was going to correct this to lowercase, but I was wrong too. (letra) minúscula = lower-case

[irmamar]

Originally Posted by Perikles

Apparently, lower case = caja baja, and upper case = caja alta, but I don't understand what these are.

Meanwhile, I was going to correct this to lowercase, but I was wrong too. (letra) minúscula = lower-case

Sorry, but this is what the dictionary says:

Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary © 2005 Oxford University Press:
minúscula sustantivo femenino
lower case letter, minuscule (tech)

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by irmamar

Sorry, but this is what the dictionary says:

Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary © 2005 Oxford University Press:
minúscula sustantivo femenino
lower case letter, minuscule (tech)

And this is what the Gran Diccionario Oxford © 2003 Oxford has:

lower-case adjective word en minúsculas; lower-case letter (letra feminine) minúscula feminine

lower case noun uncountable caja feminine baja



Maybe hyphens were declared illegal between 2003 and 2005

[wrholt]

Originally Posted by Perikles

Apparently, lower case = caja baja, and upper case = caja alta, but I don't understand what these are.

Meanwhile, I was going to correct this to lowercase, but I was wrong too. (letra) minúscula = lower-case

Uppercase/upper-case/upper case and lowercase/lower-case/lower case refer to the distinction between capital letters (A, B, C, ..., X, Y, Z) and small letters (a, b, c, ..., x, y, z).

These terms come from the days when printers produced books and newspapers by manually composing moveable type for use in a printing press. The indivual pieces of type were stored in a pair of cases arranged one over the other, and by convention the pieces of type for printing small letters were stored in the lower case, while the pieces of type for printing capital letters were stored in the upper case.

Older dictionaries tend to present "lower case" and "upper case" as the noun representing the individual cases in which the pieces of type are stored, and "lower-case" and "upper-case" as the adjective and verb.

However, some modern dictionaries now write these terms as single words: "lowercase" and "uppercase", and this is how I prefer to write them.

[irmamar]

Very interesting. Many thanks you both.