“I may take a trip in May.” Being able to understand this sentence (“may” versus “May”) relies on a capitalization tool you may not have heard of: capitonyms. This device changes a word’s meaning by capitalizing its first letter — no spelling alterations required. For instance, you might say, “We held our inaugural charity march last March.” The charity “march,” or walk, is the common noun or verb, while the capitonym “March” refers to the month. The same principle distinguishes the bird “turkey” from the country “Turkey,” the verb and noun “will” from the name “Will,” and the noun “windows” from the computer operating system “Windows.”
You might be familiar with all of these examples of capitonyms by their other designation: proper nouns. A capitonym is a proper noun that has a paired standard noun with a different meaning. Some capitonyms also change in pronunciation. Consider this sentence: “He wanted to polish off the Polish sausages.” Here, the phrasal verb “polish off” (meaning “to finish quickly”) is pronounced “pah-lish.” “Polish,” on the other hand, is an adjective relating to the country of Poland, and is pronounced “poh-lish.”
Here’s another example of pronunciation change at work: “I was reading a book at Reading Terminal Market.” Here, the verb “reading” is pronounced as usual, but the capitonym “Reading” (a market in Philadelphia) is pronounced “red-ding.” Other instances include the pronunciation of “lima beans” versus “Lima, Peru,” and “mobile phone” versus “Mobile, Alabama.”
While some capitonyms are apparent, others are less familiar. “August,” for example, is best known as the month, but “august” (lowercase) is an adjective meaning “marked by majestic dignity or grandeur.” Similarly, “Catholic,” relating to the Catholic church, has a different meaning when lowercase, as an adjective meaning “broad in sympathies, tastes, or interests.” These single-letter capitalizations and slight pronunciation variations highlight how small details can create big changes in language.
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