We would like to thank the last speech of the Minister of National Education SS. Kravtsov again started a broad discussion about spelling problems in general and lowercase/uppercase spelling problems in particular. Public interest in literacy issues cannot please the teacher of the Russian language, but I would like the discussion not to be completely superficial and amateurish.
Typing “uppercase” and “lowercase” shouldn’t be a problem it seems, but this is one of the hardest spelling rules for Russian writers. This complexity is due to several reasons.
First, the scope of the rule is very wide, very voluminous and has a complex structure. For example, in the academic reference book “Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation” edited by VV. Lopatin (currently the most authoritative set of rules for Russian spelling, hereinafter referred to as PAS), a whole section is devoted to uppercase and lowercase letters, of which there are 48 (!) paragraphs.
Secondly, this rule is not studied in practice in school, but only in the most general provisions. As you know, the school curriculum does not (and should not!) include all spelling and punctuation rules and lowercase / uppercase spellings, the clearest example of this: the school course examines and gives the most important and frequent cases. general idea of how the author should decide in more complex situations. We remember with more or less certainty the proper names and geographical objects, we know that with a capital letter we have the right to stylistically emphasize something important, important. But already with the names of the holidays, everything is not so good, congratulations “Happy Birthday!” (and as many as two typos here) everyone saw it. He notes that the spelling rule for “uppercase” and “lowercase” letters is not as strict as many Russian spelling rules, suggesting and not requiring in most cases writing one way or another. Therefore, the attitude to such mistakes is much more loyal than the obnoxious “-tsya / -tsya, I like her or a girl”.
Third, the application of a rule often requires a semantic and/or formal analysis of the context. And the exact spelling of the word “god” that the minister was talking about is not easy and depends on the meaning and scope of the word.
In paragraph 138, PAS recommends (and does not recommend, mind you!) that in monotheistic religions the word God should be capitalized only as the name of a single supreme being. Accordingly, it is clear (and the handbook points to this) that the word god must be written in lowercase in the plural.
Of course, we should not capitalize the word “god” in fixed expressions that have no direct connection with religion, and most of them are in Russian (although you can’t remember God in vain): God doesn’t know what, God knows Who he is, God knows, God puts him in his soul He will put it, God bless him, God knows what, God forbid, for God’s sake, etc.
Capitalizing exclamation points such as “my god”, “my god” is not recommended.
The spelling of some expressions depends on the context: it is necessary to understand whether there is an obvious religious component or whether we are dealing with a generally accepted expression of emotion. For example, the phrases “Praise be to Allah / Praise be to Allah”, “For the sake of Allah / For the sake of Allah” can be written in both lowercase and capital letters, but in the expression “thank God” (in the sense) “unfortunately”) capitalization is no longer not possible.
For the competent application of this rule, context is important when using the word god and apart from fixed expressions and exclamations. In narrow circles, I remember the well-known story about the corrector, which consistently corrected lowercase letters in all references to god in capital letters, including phrases like “he is like a god”. I think any of us could easily come up with a few more sentences – examples of inappropriate use of capitalization in this word.
As we’ve seen, even the spelling of a word can require scientific analysis, a complex explanation that takes into account phrasal units, interjections, context of use, style, semantics, and other factors. I would love for public speeches by authoritative public figures to place in the minds of writers the idea that orthography is a science, that the “writing agenda” is above all the competence and responsibility of experts. does not support a layman’s superficial view of the principles and system of spelling, normalization, encoding and orthographic rules of the Russian language.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.