Do I always need a capital letter after an exclamation mark or a question mark?
I’m bilingual with french, and, especially in older works, I’ve often stumbled upon exclamation marks or question marks that don’t end a sentence, but merely serve to accentuate a specific part of a sentence. Sometimes they replace a comma, sometimes not.
Is this kind of stuff legal in the english language or not? I haven’t seen it in english texts so far, but I have no reason to believe it would only exist in french and not in english.
EDIT: Here are some examples (in french) that Wikipedia provides:
« Ah ! non ! c’est un peu court, jeune homme ! On pouvait dire… Oh !
Dieu !… bien des choses en somme… »— Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac (I, 4)
« C’est la femme d’un autre ! ô jalousie affreuse ! »
— Victor Hugo, Ruy Blas (II, 3)
Answer
In English punctuation rules as we teach children in grammar primers, an exclamation mark definitely requires a capital letter after it (unless there is something in between, such as an ellipsis or quotation mark). Generally, it is used to replace a period. We use it at the end of a sentence, even if it’s not the most logical place: "Dang, that is completely amazing!"
Note that the following examples are fine (one taken from http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/08/punctuation-in-dialogue/ ):
"He loved you!" she said, pointing a finger at Sally.
They all held their breath, waiting…bang!…and it was over.
Those same books might tell you not to end a sentence with a preposition. In those books’ version of English punctuation, dashes simply do not exist. In short, outside the classroom there can be greater flexibility. I would not blink if a literary work used an exclamation mark mid-sentence without capitalization afterward.
How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly I can tell you the whole story.
-"The Tell-Tale Heart", Edgar Allen Poe
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Inobulles , Answer Author : Mike Graham
