Learn English – Capitalization of a word after an ellipsis
capitalizationellipsis
Should I capitalize the word "don't" in the following sentence?
Listen… don’t panic.
Best Answer
No, you do not capitalize the word following the ellipsis. I have only ever seen and used spaces in ellipses in academic writing when omitting text from the middle of a quote. For instance, from the Wikipedia article for linguistic ellipses, in the sentence:
In linguistics, ellipsis (from the Greek: ἔλλειψις, élleipsis,
"omission") or elliptical construction refers to the omission, from a
clause, of one or more words that are nevertheless understood in the
context of the remaining elements.
I can use ellipses to remove information and inform the reader of the missing text, as you can see if you compare my new sentence to the original:
In linguistics, ellipsis . . . refers to the omission . . . of one or
more words that are nevertheless understood in the context of the
remaining elements.
In your case, it sounds like you're writing some form of dialogue. When using an ellipsis in dialogue, you are indicating a pause in the sentence. You do not use spaces or capitalization surrounding the ellipsis. In the sentence you provided, the correct style is:
acronym refers to terms based on the initial letters of their various elements and read as single words (AIDS, laser, NASA,
scuba);
initialism refers to terms read as a series of letters (AOL, NBA, XML);
contraction refers to abbreviations that include the first and last letters of the full word (Mr., amt.).
As for the capitalization of these constructs, CMS has these recommendations:
Initialisms tend to appear in all capital letters, even when they are
not derived from proper nouns (HIV, VP, LCD). With frequent use,
however, acronyms—especially those of five or more letters—will
sometimes become lowercase (scuba); those that are derived from proper
nouns retain an initial capital. Chicago generally prefers the
all-capital form, unless the term is listed otherwise in Webster’s.
[NAFTA (not Nafta)]
On the other hand, if the words in a spelled-out version of an acronym
or initialism are not derived from proper nouns or do not themselves
constitute a proper noun (as in the official name of an organization),
they should generally be lowercased, even when they appear alongside
the abbreviated form. [transmission-control protocol/Internet protocol
(TCP/IP)]
So, whether CAOWS is:
an acronym, pronounced cows
an initialism, pronounced "SEE-AY-OH-DUBYA-ESS"
the Chicago Manual, at least, would recommend you write:
My coworker Steve suffers from Complete Avoidance of Work Syndrome
(CAOWS).
Note that in Nathan's comment, it's necessary to lowercase DoS (an acronym for denial-of-service) to disambiguate it from DOS (an acronym for disk operating system). I don't think CAOWS has any such problem.
Best Answer
No, you do not capitalize the word following the ellipsis. I have only ever seen and used spaces in ellipses in academic writing when omitting text from the middle of a quote. For instance, from the Wikipedia article for linguistic ellipses, in the sentence:
I can use ellipses to remove information and inform the reader of the missing text, as you can see if you compare my new sentence to the original:
In your case, it sounds like you're writing some form of dialogue. When using an ellipsis in dialogue, you are indicating a pause in the sentence. You do not use spaces or capitalization surrounding the ellipsis. In the sentence you provided, the correct style is: