From: benlizro@ihug.co.nz   
      
   On 15/10/2024 11:56 a.m., Christian Weisgerber wrote:   
   > On 2024-10-14, Ross Clark  wrote:   
   >   
   >> but bicamerality did not become general in europe until 1300   
   >> and took some time to more or less stabilize in english   
   >> you probably noticed in the text quoted yesterday from the time of henry   
   >> iv, all nouns capitalized (as still in german)   
   >   
   > In the 19th century, there was a fashion in the German linguistic   
   > literature, I think, to abandon noun capitalization.  Notably the   
   > _Deutsches Wörterbuch_ (German Dictionary) started by the Brothers   
   > Grimm stuck to this.   
   >   
      
   I meant to mention that something like this capitalization practice   
   persisted in English at least until late in the 18th century. I noticed   
   it when reading narratives of voyages to the Pacific at that period.   
   More particularly, it shows up in (carefully transcribed) journals of   
   voyagers such as Cook. An example from George Robertson at Tahiti, 1767:   
   ----------------------   
   All the way that we ran allong shore we saw the whole coast full of   
   Canoes, and the country had the most Beautiful appearance its possible   
   to Imagin from the shore side one two and three miles Back their is a   
   fine Leavel country that appears to be all laid out in plantations, and   
   the regular built Houses seems to be without number, all along the   
   Coast, they appeard lyke long Farmers Barns and seemd to be all very   
   neatly thatched, with great Numbers of Cocoa Nut Trees....   
   ----------------   
      
   This looks roughly like capitalization of lexical words for emphasis,   
   rather than on any grammatical basis.   
      
   By contrast the published accounts, even when based on journals, seem to   
   have completely modern usage of capitals.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)