When starting a sentence with a number, should the first letter be capitalised?
For example,
96% Real meat.
or
96% real meat.
capitalizationnumberswriting-style
When starting a sentence with a number, should the first letter be capitalised?
For example,
96% Real meat.
or
96% real meat.
Best Answer
Since you ask about sentences that begin with a number, it seems relevant to note that many style guides advise against using a numeral at the beginning of a sentence. And if you spell out the opening number as a word, the question of whether the next word in the sentence should be capitalized doesn't come up. Here are some stylebook guidelines on this question.
From The New York Times Manual of Stye and Usage (1999):
From The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law (2002):
From The Chicago Manual of Style, fifteenth edition (2003):
From Words Into Type, third edition (1974):
From The Oxford Guide to Style (2002):
The way you handle numbers at the beginning of sentences remains a style decision, but the style guides I consulted showed a remarkable degree of unanimity in favoring spelling out the number in that situation. The only dissenter on this point is the AP Stylebook, which recommends spelling years with numerals even at the beginning of a sentence. It bears observing that in its example of a sentence starting with a year—"1976 was a very good year"—AP rendered the second word, was, in all-lowercase letters.
Whether this advice applies to sentence fragments such as "96% real meat" is for you or your publisher to decide. If I were posting a fragment such as that one on, say, a butcher shop price card, I would feel free to please myself on number-versus-word, capitalization, and punctuation.