a proper noun?

[aidy]

On a website we could have the words 'My Account'. Is 'My Account' a
proper noun? Would it be valid to use 'My account'? If it is not a
proper noun and the 'M' & 'A' should be capitalised, why?

Thanks

Aidy

[Don Phillipson]

"aidy" <***@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:a7114be4-0942-4b93-8557-***@q77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

> On a website we could have the words 'My Account'. Is 'My Account' a
> proper noun?

No, cf. dictionary definitions of proper nouns (names of
individual people, places, etc.)

> Would it be valid to use 'My account'? If it is not a
> proper noun and the 'M' & 'A' should be capitalised, why?

Rules for capitalization are matters of style, thus documented
at length in style manuals: there are probably style
manuals for the Internet nowadays, published for the
larger corporate web sites. But rules of capitalization remain
matters of convention only (e.g. national adjectives like
American are capitalized in English but are written
as lower case americain in other languages e.g. French.)
This is not a matter of validity or invalidiity.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Mark Brader]

Aidy Lewis:
> On a website we could have the words 'My Account'. Is 'My Account' a
> proper noun?

No, but it might be a title.
--
Mark Brader | "And don't forget there were five separate computers
***@vex.net | in those days."
Toronto | -- Bob NE20G3018 (Ira Levin, "This Perfect Day")

[Toby A Inkster]

aidy wrote:

> If it is not a proper noun and the 'M' & 'A' should be capitalised, why?

No, it's not a proper noun, but being a proper noun is not the only reason
words get capitalised. For instance, the word "for" at the start of this
sentence is capitalised, but it is not a proper noun.

Titles are normally capitalised differently from normal sentences. One
fairly standard rule is to capitalise a title as you would an ordinary
sentence, and then capitalise any nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs in
the title, and to capitalise the last word of the title. Though some house
styles differ from this.

For example, take a look at the title of the web page referenced in my
signature below. All words are capitalised apart from "with". The last
word is a trade mark with unusual capitalisation.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS

Sharing Music with Apple iTunes
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/11/28/itunes-sharing/