Sunday, October 2, 2011

Uso de las Mayúsculas-When to Capitalized Part 2

Using Capitals after punctuation

In Spanish, we have to use capitals, when:
1.The first word after a period or the first word of writing:
Mañana no puedo ir. La semana que viene si puedo ir.

2. If the word follows an ellipsis (...), when they are located at the end of the sentence:
     Compramos ajo, camarones, vino........ La cena resultó un éxito.
But, if the ellipsis do not end the sentence, but instead there is more coming after, the word that follow the ellipsis will be written in small caps.
Estoy pensando que .....voy a ir; en esta ocasión debo de tomar el riesgo.

3. After a colon [:], you should use the capital in the following cases:
     a. After the colon placed at the head of a letter or greeting such as: 
Muy señor mío: / Le agradeceré...
     b. After the colon in Legal- administrative document: CERTIFICA: / Que D. Luis García Gonzalez ha seguido el Curso de Técnicas Audiovisuales...
c. After the colon that let us know what someone is going to say:
Rodolfo dijo: «No regreso hasta las once».

 4. In interrogative and exclamatory phrases:
                        a. If the question or the exclamation is all it is going to be said. That is they end the phrases:
                             ¿Qué hora es? Son las cuatro y treinta y cinco de la tarde. As you can see, the word after the question mark is capitalized.
                              ¡Qué miedo pasamos ayer! Se nos hizo de noche mientras bajábamos de los Teques.

                         b. If the question or the exclamation is the only part of what you want to say, then there are two other rules:
                                   1)
The question or the exclamation are at the begining. In this case, the first letter after the sign is capitalized. ¿Qué hora es? and the one that follows the question mark ? is written in small caps ---¿Qué hora es?, son las cuatro y cuarenta y siete. This also happens when there are many short questions or exclamations that can be considered as unique and could be separated by comas or semi-colon.
¿Cómo te llamas?, ¿en qué trabajas?, ¿dónde naciste?
                                   2)  The question and exclamation mark are not located at the beginning of the writing, or follow other words that are part of the writing.
María, ¿puedes ayudarme?
Pero ¡qué alegría tan grande verte por aquí!

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