Also say a bank provides services such as commercial and private banking, asset management, islamic finance, brokerage, financial market services, leasing and property managemenent. Would this be capitalised? I have seen it written both ways on the web. Technically these are names of services so my gut feeling is to capitalise but am just not sure!

Thanks

But that’s not much fun, is it? Creative writers have been bending the rules for many years, and that includes how capitalization and proper nouns are treated. Take e.e. cummings, for example. He often depicted his entire name in lowercase letters. I’ve seen some examples in which a publication opted to capitalize Mr. Cummings’ name and others where they leave it lowercase (I’m guessing out of respect). So, my second answer is that it’s up to the publication or editor.

Suppose some one’s username is “rickety” in lower-case, and you don’t know their real name. Do I write a sentence like this:

“Melissa Donovan is a fine writer. rickety is not so hot.”

Sounds like a silly question but I come across similar examples occasionally.
.-= rick@rickety´s last blog ..Debt Reduction Commission =-.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Men in Black (MIB)

While IMDB is not a grammar resource, it’s a good place to go to check out how the industry is treating capitalization. Or, just look at the movie poster or DVD cover I would use that as the official way to capitalize.

I managed to escape this on titling my blog posts since I choose to keep the entire title in lowercase. Sometimes I do this because a post might be a line from a song or quote from a movie.

And regarding when to capitalize “president” …I’ve always been confused by that. So thanks for that, I think some of the newspapers I’ve read must have it wrong since I’ve frequently seen “the President did such and things and blah”.

What would it be like to be grammarian? What do their offices look like? How much do they get paid? I’m not really looking for answers to those questions… just some thoughts typed out loud.
.-= t. sterling´s last blog ..fripodding and remembering: “as time goes by” dooley wilson =-.

Here’s what Chicago says about capitalizing after a colon:

“When a colon is used within a sentence… the first word following the colon is lowercased unless it is a proper name. When a colon introduces two or more sentences… or when it introduces a speech in dialogue or an extract… the first word following it is capitalized.”

Basically, if the text that follows the colon is a complete sentence, it gets capitalized.

Hope that helps. You guys are asking some excellent questions about capitalization!