History Main / CapitalLettersAreMagic

[[folder:Religion and Mythology]]

* In ''Fanfic/TheButcherBird'', the proper names of [[ImAHumanitarian ghouls]] are always rendered in '''CAPITAL BOLD'''.
* From a ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' FanFic: "Capital letters were very useful when dealing with Gaara. They helped to distinguish between sand, which got in your shorts, and [[CallingYourAttacks Sand]], [[SandBlaster which could kill you.]]"
* The ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' fanfic, ''Fanfic/TheLegendOfTotalDramaIsland'' has a couple of notable cases:

** Concepts related to the [[LanguageOfMagic Thu'um]], such as "Voice" and "[[MakeMeWannaShout Shout]]" are capitalized regardless of their placement in a sentence to distinguish them from mundane speech.

* The ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' powerups are always capitalized. It's not a mushroom, it's a Super Mushroom, it's not a fire flower, it's a Fire Flower, etc.

* {{Wiki Word}}s.

* [[ComicBook/TheSandman The Endless]]

* [[Literature/TheBible The Word]], [[Literature/TheBible The LORD]] [[note]]In English translations of The Bible, "the LORD" in caps means that the original text in Hebrew has the true name of God that you shouldn't use in vain (or according to the Jews, not at all), to distinguish it from the word "lord" anywhere else.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'' will never invent a word when it can use an applicable capitalized noun. To give an idea, the player character is a Guardian resurrected by a Ghost and empowered by the Light by an enigmatic patron, the Traveler, to defend humanity's Last City against the forces of the Darkness.

* More 'official' than 'magic, but ''Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}'', by Creator/NealStephenson, has a passage in which the main character navigated a small island. It is so small, in fact, that there is only one of most things-hence titles such as 'the Car', 'the Street', and 'the Squeegee'.

** American lawyers and judges will always capitalize the word "Court" whenever it refers to the [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCourts United States Supreme Court]], even if the full name is not being used. (Example: In ''United States v. Windsor'' [a US Supreme Court case], the Court held..." but "In ''Windsor v. United States'' [a trial court case], the court held..."). They may also capitalize it in reference to their state's highest court, but not always. Also, American lawyers have historically learned that they should always capitalize "court" when referring to the court that they are currently litigating in; i.e. if they write a brief in support of a motion, it should always be "Defendants request the Court to do x," etc.

In universe, a character may comment on how they can "hear" the Capital Letters. Of course, this is easily explained as proper nouns have inflections, pauses, and emphasis that normal speech does not.

** The names of the various natural information networks are always written with a capital letter and in italics (eg. ''Aura'').

** "Literature/LetsGetTogether": The narration points out that characters in this story unconsciously emphasize the "Us" and "Them" terms dividing [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp the two world superpowers]], because saying "East", "Reds", "Soviets", or "Russians" would be misleading/wrong, while "We" and "They" remain accurate.

One of the hardest parts of making a fantasy or science fiction world can be names. Not just for people, but for metaphysical concepts, alien races or awe-inspiring devices/weapons. When writers don't want to make up a new word, they'll often take a short, evocative term and capitalize it. The practice is still so commonplace that Creator/JRRTolkien (who was a language professor at a respected university) decided to use a trick of combining Capital Letters Are Magic with commonplace words from [[ConLang languages he'd made up for fun in his spare time]] to create all of his fictional-but-now-well-known fantasy names. Here on [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife this site]] we get a lot of tropes this way as well, such as the TheLoad and TheDragon.[[note]]Of course, some of that's due to the wiki software's conventions.[[/note]]

* The French expression "l'Histoire avec un grand H" (History with a capital H) is used to refer to history as in big dramatic events like wars and empires, because the word also means story or tale when not duly capitalized.

* People draw a distinction between ideologies and the political parties that have appropriated the names of the ideologies. For example, there are "small-l libertarians" and "big-L Libertarians". Occasionally, there is a massive distinction between the party and the ideology from which it gets its name, so the capital makes a huge difference. Compare Republicans and republicans.

* '''Magykal''' words in ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'' are always capitalized.* "The Change" in ''Literature/TheLastDove'' to refer to the ability of all the characters to shapeshift.

* The German language mostly averts this, by virtue of being the only major language to retain a orthographic convention languages like English used to have: All nouns begin with capital letters. There are thus no proper nouns and only very rarely does the capitalization of any given word mean a thing. However, psychological studies on reading comprehension indicate that the trope applies insofar as German (and even Danish or Dutch that ditched said convention centuries ago) becomes easier to read with the nouns - and only the nouns - capitalized.

** ''Literature/Nightfall1990'': Due to phobias and rarity, dark is often called Dark or Darkness, and used as a curse word for ill-fortune. Other terms are also spoken with capital letters, such as Stars, Cold, and Doom, all associated with the religious fear caused by nightfall.

* People draw a distinction between ideologies and the political parties that have appropriated the names of the ideologies. For example, there are "small-l libertarians" and "big-L Libertarians". Occasionally, there is a massive distinction between the party and the ideology from which it gets its name, so the capital makes a huge difference. Compare Republicans and republicans.

** This is used in ''Literature/FeetOfClay'' when [[spoiler: Dorfl is finally rebaked and given a tongue.]] There's nothing spectacularly ''magical'' about All Those Capital Letters, but much like the one who speaks them, every word has a certain ''weight.'' Especially the ones about Serving The Public Interest, and Seriously Prodding Buttock. The impression given is that each of them thuds neatly into place like an exquisitely carved stone block.