Reverential capitalization

Reverential capitalization is the practice of capitalizing words, particularly pronouns, that refer to a deity or divine being, in cases where the words would not otherwise have been capitalized:

and God calleth to the light 'Day,' and to the darkness He hath called 'Night;' and there is an evening, and there is a morning — day one. -- Genesis 1:5, Young's Literal Translation (1862)

In this example, "God" is in capitals because it is, like "Day" or "Night", a noun which is here a proper name, whereas "He" is an example of reverential capitalization, since while proper names are capitalized universally, reverence for any particular divinity—belief therein implied on the part of the author who capitalizes pronouns in reference to such being—is not universal. In short, when pronouns are capitalized which usually are lowercase, this usually implies that the writer personally reveres and regards as a deity the antecedent of that pronoun.

Capitalization, punctuation, and spelling were not well standardized in early Modern English; for example, the 1611 King James Bible has:

For our heart shall reioyce in him: because we haue trusted in his holy name. -- Psalms 33:21

In the 17th and 18th centuries, it became common to capitalize all nouns, as is still done in some other Germanic languages such as in German:

By this Time it blew a terrible Storm indeed[...] -- Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, 1719

For through him our Heart is glad, since we trust in his holy Name. -- Psalms 33:21, Quaker Bible, 1764

Later this convention was abandoned, and one of the people who were influential in this was Benjamin Blayney, who produced a 1769 edition of the Bible in which nouns were not capitalized—possibly simply to save space on the printed page.^[1] In the 19th century, it became common to capitalize pronouns referring to the Christian God, in order to show respect:

For in Him doth our heart rejoice, For in His holy name we have trusted. -- Psalms 33:21, Young's Literal Translation (1862)

In the 20th century this practice became far less common:

For our heart rejoices in him, because we have trusted in his holy name. -- Psalms 33:21, World English Bible (1997)

Today there is no widely accepted rule in English on whether or not to use reverential capitalization. Different house styles have different rules given by their style manuals. Reverential capitalization is not to be used, for example, according to the style guidelines set by the Chicago Manual of Style^[2] or the Associated Press Stylebook. It is prescribed, for example, by the US Government Printing Office Style Manual (2008).^[3]

This capitalization rule is also customarily applied in Tagalog and other languages of the Philippines, despite being considered nonstandard and inconsistent by purists who contend that this rule is applied only in English.

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