The Grammar of English Grammars, page 370 by Gould Brown

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371

the nouns formed immediately from such adjectives, it is clear that they ought to have capitals: no one will contend that the words American and Americans should be written with a small a. With respect to _Americanism, Gallicism_, and other similar words, there may be some room to doubt. But I prefer a capital for these. And, that we may have a uniform rule to go by, I would not stop here, but would write Americanize and Americanized with a capital also; for it appears that custom is in favour of thus distinguishing nearly all verbs and participles of this kind, so long as they retain an obvious reference to their particular origin. But when any such word ceases to be understood as referring directly to the proper name, it may properly be written without a capital. Thus we write jalap from _Jalapa, hermetical_ from _Hermes, hymeneal_ from _Hymen, simony_, from _Simon, philippic_ from _Philip_; the verbs, to hector, to romance, to japan, to christen, to philippize, to _galvanize_; and the adverbs hermetically and jesuitically, all without a capital: and perhaps _judaize, christianize_, and their derivatives, may join this class. Dr. Webster's octavo Dictionary mentions "the prussic acid" and "prussian blue," without a capital; and so does Worcester's.

OBS. 15.--On Rule 12th, concerning I and O, it may be observed, that although many who occasionally write, are ignorant enough to violate this, as well as every other rule of grammar, yet no printer ever commits blunders of this sort. Consequently, the few erroneous examples which will be exhibited for correction under it, will not be undesigned mistakes. Among the errors of books, we do not find the printing of the words I and O in small characters; but the confounding of O with the other interjection oh, is not uncommon even among grammarians. The latter has no concern wit

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