The English Oracle

Capitalize first words in a list?

--------------------------------------------------
Rise to the top 3% as a developer or hire one of them at Toptal: https://topt.al/25cXVn
--------------------------------------------------

Music by Eric Matyas
https://www.soundimage.org
Track title: Mysterious Puzzle

--

Chapters
00:00 Capitalize First Words In A List?
00:38 Accepted Answer Score 11
01:12 Thank you

--

Full question
https://english.stackexchange.com/questi...

--

Content licensed under CC BY-SA
https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/lice...

--

Tags
#capitalization

#avk47



ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 11


Yes, it depends on the content - and the context - of the list. In a way you have to kind of forget that the bullet points are there and decide whether the list is part of one big sentence or whether each point is a separate sentence. For example:

(all one sentence - lower case):

In my spare time I like to:

  • cut down trees
  • eat my lunch
  • go to the lavatory

(separate sentences - capital letters):

Some characteristics of a lumberjack I know:

  • He's ok.
  • He sleeps all night and he works all day.
  • On Wednesdays he goes shopping and has buttered scones for tea.