Pause at her martyr’s tomb.—Campbell.
RULE IX. A word usually put down may be put up, or vice versa, by reason of propinquity to some other word which is in the opposite category as to capitalization.
The Secretary of War complimented the Secretary of the Typographical Union, upon his skill with the shooting-stick.
Shall the Choctaw Nation or this Nation adjust the northern boundary? {p194}
Before leaving the subject of capitalization, we must observe that there is diversity among authors and printers in regard to the use of capitals when two or more questions occur in succession. The rule generally given is, “Capitalize each question”: but the exceptions are so numerous, depending on some common relation to a term expressed or understood (see Obs. 30 and 31, Rule 29, Chap. V., ante), that we forbear indorsing the rule to which we have above referred. Indeed, it often happens that questions occurring singly are so connected with what goes before, that they do not require to be capitalized. Each case must be settled by the judgment of editor or author,—there is no common standard of reference, as can easily be shown by comparing different editions of the same work. In Buckingham’s Shakspeare, printed in Boston, we read in As you Like It, Act 5, Sc. 2:
Orl. Is’t possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? . . . And will you persever, etc.,
the last question having a capital A; but in the London edition of French & Co., we have—
Orl. Is’t possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? . . . and will you persever, etc.,
in which the last of the several questions has a lower-case a. Every editor endeavors to capitalize correctly—by suiting himself.