Jan 1, 2013

Capitonyms

These are words that change their meaning based on whether the first letter is capitalized or not. Capitonyms are particularly troublesome when they appear at the beginning of a sentence, as there is no way, based on the single word alone to tell which meaning is being referred to.

Examples of these include: August vs. august (month vs majestic or venerable); Calorie vs. calorie (1000 calories (food) vs. 1 calorie); Divine vs. divine (related to God vs. to discover by intuition or insight); etc.

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