Lower case a team


terminology - Why lower case "a" for "abelian group" and upper case "C" for "Cauchy sequence"?

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Modified 7 years, 9 months ago

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This has been bugging me.

Why is the lower case letter "a" used to spell "abelian group" when upper case letters are used to spell the terms, "Gaussian Integral", "Cantor set" or "Cauchy sequence"?

Don't know where else to ask.

  • terminology

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12

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Some references still write here Abelian group, and not abelian group, e. g., see here. However, I admit that most texts write it with a lower case. Perhaps "abelian" it is a so common property, that it became a real adjective. Also, Grothendieck's anabelian geometry is written with a lower case.

The question has been discussed also at MO here. And the following nice saying can be found at MSE here:

You know you've made it as a mathematician when they start using your name in lowercase.

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This is an interesting question, in French the rule is clear when you use the proper noun you write with an upper case for instance "Cauchy sequence" is written "suite de Cauchy", "Cantor set" is written "ensemble de Cantor". However when you "adjectify" (It is certainly not the good word, sorry) a proper noun you just stop to put an upper case "abelian group" is written "groupe abélien" and "Gaussian integral" is written "intégrale gaussienne".

In English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization the rules seems to be to always put an upper case when the adjective is derived from a proper noun.

So to answer your question, it looks like a gallicism to me.

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This has been bugging me.

For bug-related problems, please use StackOverflow ;-$)$


Why lower case “a” for “abelian group” and upper case “C” for “Cauchy sequence” ?

Because Cauchy is a proper name, whereas abelian is an adjective. If it would have been called “Abel group”, then capitalization would have been mandatory. You can, of course, capitalize the adjective Abelian also, if you so desire, but, as I said, it's not mandatory.

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5

Why Are There Uppercase and Lowercase Letters?

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  • Why are there uppercase and lowercase letters?
  • Did uppercase or lowercase letters come first?
  • Do all languages have both uppercase and lowercase letters?
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Did you see that? Right there…back at the beginning of that first sentence. What are we talking about? The word “Did," of course! Did you notice anything strange about that word? Did you? For example, did you notice that it contained one letter twice but it looked different each time it appeared?

“Did," when it appears at the beginning of a sentence, starts out with an uppercase “D" and ends with a lowercase “d." They're the same letter, but they look different. Have you ever given any thought to how strange that is? Why can't all letters simply be the same? Why do we have both uppercase and lowercase letters?

When it comes to letters, case refers to whether letters are written in larger uppercase form, which is also often known as majuscule or capital letters, or smaller lowercase form, which is also known as miniscule or small letters. For example, the first three letters of the alphabet in uppercase form are A, B, and C. Those same three letters in lowercase form are a, b, and c.

Historians believe that majuscule or uppercase letters came first. The first alphabets were written entirely in large majuscule letters, evenly spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds.

Over time, however, it was only natural that smaller versions of each letter would develop. This probably happened as letters were written quickly. To save time and space, letters became smaller and more rounded as scribes hurried to finish their work.

These smaller versions of letters eventually evolved into an entire miniscule set of letters. Compared to majuscule versions, the miniscule versions offered improved and faster readability in addition to being easier and faster to write.

At first, scribes would only use majuscule or miniscule letters, but not a mixture of both. That changed over time, though. Although there were no official capitalization rules in the English language until the early 18th century, scribes had traditionally written certain letters, such as nouns and the first letters of sentences, in a larger, distinct script for hundreds of years.

Today, lowercase letters are used most frequently, with uppercase letters reserved for special purposes, such as capitalizing proper nouns or the first letter of a sentence. The terms “uppercase" and “lowercase" come from the way in which print shops were organized hundreds of years ago.

Individual pieces of metal type were kept in boxes called cases. The smaller letters, which were used most often, were kept in a lower case that was easier to reach. Capital letters, which were used less frequently, were kept in an upper case. Because of this old storage convention, we still refer to small letters as lowercase and capital letters as uppercase.

The distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters doesn't exist in all languages, though. Certain Eastern and Asian writing systems, including certain Indian, Chinese, and Japanese alphabets, do not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters.

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Did you enjoy learning more about uppercase and lowercase letters today? Learn even more when you explore the following activities with a friend or family member:

  • Write your name in a new and interesting way today! Have you ever tried writing your name in all uppercase letters? What about all lowercase letters? How about all lowercase letters until the end and then a capital letter at the very end? Come up with some fun and crazy ways to write your name. You never know when you might invent an entirely new style of writing!
  • Ask an adult friend or family member to help you create a simple document on the computer with a word processor. All you need to do is write a few simple sentences. Write a short story or simply write a few sentences about what you had for dinner the night before. Once you have your sentences, play with the selection of fonts available on your computer. What font do you like the best? Why? Have fun playing with fonts to change the look of your text!
  • When is it important to know the difference between uppercase and lowercase letters? When you need to capitalize something, of course! Take the online Capitalization Quiz to test your knowledge of proper capitalization. How well can you do? Test yourself against your friends and family members.

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Changing the case of text - Microsoft Support

Word for Microsoft 365 PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 Word for Microsoft 365 for Mac PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 for Mac Word for the web PowerPoint for the web Word 2021 PowerPoint 2021 Word 2021 for Mac PowerPoint 2021 for Mac Word 2019 PowerPoint 2019 Word 2019 for Mac PowerPoint 2019 for Mac Word 2016 PowerPoint 2016 Word 2016 for Mac PowerPoint 2016 for Mac Word 2013 PowerPoint 2013 Word 2010 PowerPoint 2010 Word 2007 PowerPoint 2007 Word Starter 2010 More. ..Less

You can change the case of selected text in a document by clicking the Change case button on the Home tab .

Note: For autocapitalization rules, see Set up AutoCorrect: Capitalization, Spelling, and Symbols.

Change case

To change the case of selected text in a document:

  1. Select the text whose case you want to change.

  2. Navigate to home > change .

  3. Do one of the following:

    • To capitalize the first letter of the application and leave the rest in lowercase, select As in sentences .

    • To make all letters lowercase, select all lowercase .

    • To capitalize all letters, select option ALL CAPS .

    • To capitalize the first letter of each word and lowercase the rest, select Start In Uppercase .

    • To reverse case (for example, switch from mode Start Capitals to mode START WITH LOWER ), select CHANGE CASE .

    Tips:

    • To apply small caps to text, select the text, and then on the Home tab , in the Font group, click the arrow in the lower right corner. In dialog box Font in section Modification check box small caps .

    • To undo a case change, press CTRL+Z.

    • To use keyboard shortcuts to change case, upper case, and upper case in each word, select the text and press SHIFT+F3 until the correct case is applied.

See also

Insert a drop cap

AutoCorrect Setting: Capitalization

Case change

To change the case of selected text in a document:

  1. Select the text whose case you want to change.

  2. Navigate to home > change .

  3. Do one of the following:

    • To capitalize the first letter of the application and leave the rest in lowercase, select As in sentences .

    • To make all letters lowercase, select all lowercase .

    • To capitalize all letters, select ALL CAPITAL .

    • To capitalize the first letter of each word and lowercase the rest, select Start In Uppercase .

    • To reverse case (for example, switch from Start CAPS to START LOCK mode), select CHANGE CASE .

    Tips:

    • To apply small letters to text, you select the text, and then on the Format menu, choose Font , and then in the Font dialog box, in the Effects area, select the Small Letters box.

      Small Caps shortcut key : ⌘ +SHIFT+K

    • To undo a case change, press ⌘ +Z.

    • To use keyboard shortcuts to change the case, uppercase, and case of each word, select the text and press FN+SHIFT+F3 until the desired style is applied.

See also

Insert a drop cap

AutoCorrect Setting: Capitalization

PowerPoint for the web supports dossier editing. See procedure below.

Word for the web does not support editing a case. Open a document in the desktop app and edit its dossier. Alternatively, you can manually change the casing text in Word for the web.

  1. Select the text you want to change.

  2. Navigate to home > Additional font options > Change file .

  3. Select the desired register.

How to change the register of letters in Word

Table of Table of Table

    • Register sign in Word
    • by means of the Font toolbar
    • using the key combination
    • Register varieties
9000

in the moments while typing, it happens that the entire text or its fragment is printed only in capital letters. It would seem that there is only one choice left - to erase everything and retype it, but no, you just need to change the case and select the appropriate spelling of the words. There are several simple ways to solve this curiosity.

Case sign in Word

In order for the first word in a sentence in a paragraph to start with an uppercase letter and continue with lowercase letters, you need to change the mode to “As in sentences”. You can find it as follows:

  1. Select part of the typed article or the entire text;
  2. Open the "Home" tab in the main menu;
  3. Select case sign;
  4. Indicate "As in the proposals".

Such case variants as: "All lowercase" and "All uppercase" are the most known and understood. Let's take a closer look at the modes: "Start with uppercase" and "Change case".

If you select a paragraph and choose "Start in uppercase". Then each new word will be printed in uppercase, regardless of whether the sentence begins or not.

Let's write the sentence in the usual form, i.e., the first letter of the first word in the sentence is capitalized, and the subsequent letters are all lowercase.

After selecting the text, click on "change case", you get this result. The only earlier upper case will change to lower case, and the following words, written earlier in lower case, will change to upper case.

Therefore, if the phrase or sentence is written in capital letters, after pressing "change case", the sentence will change the upper case to lower case, including the first letter of the sentence. You can clearly see it below:

Before:

After:

Using the Font toolbar

For this you need:

  1. Select all or part of the text;
  2. Go to the "Home" tab and click on the "Font" dialog box;

This window "Font" can also be called by the key combination "Ctrl + D".

In the new window, select the desired spelling: "Small Caps" or "All Caps". After you check the box in the appropriate place, in the "Sample" section, a view of the source text will be shown.

Using keyboard shortcut

With the help of hot keys, the case change is carried out instantly. You need to follow the steps:

  1. Select part of a text document;
  2. Press the hotkeys "Shift + F3" (F3 is located in the first upper row of the entire keyboard), F3 should be pressed until the case transforms the text into the desired form;

This method will change the case of letters in the selected document in 3 variations.

  1. Select a fragment of the article, press "Shift + F3". The result is uppercase text.
  2. Click the hot key "F3" a second time. As a result, the phrase is written in lower case.
  3. We press the third time on the button "F3" and we get a sentence with a capital letter.

Varieties of register in Word versions

The types of register that will be described below are relevant if you use the key combination "Shift + F3".


Learn more