18

Should a word after a slash at the beginning of a sentence be capitalized?

E.g.

  1. Risk/Issue management
  2. Risk/issue management

I would guess the first one is correct because "Issue" would be an alternative beginning due to the slash.

TrevorD
  • 12,206
Achim A
  • 281
  • You are right, thought not quite "because Issue would be an alternative beginning" but because both "Risk" and "Issue" have context-sensitive meanings. Here these words mean exactly as defined for the purpose of the context and not the general meaning. – Kris Aug 29 '13 at 08:34
  • 1
    I cannot quite follow you. What is difference between context-sensitive and general meaning and why does it impact the capitalization? – Achim A Aug 29 '13 at 11:33
  • In lists of terms like that only the first cap is used, generally. Unless you are referring to titles of some kind, which case management should also be in caps. – Lambie Jul 16 '22 at 20:00

2 Answers2

14

For a sentence, only capitalise the first word:

Risk/issue management is important because it will help you highlight ...

For a title, capitalise all words as usual:

Risk/Issue Management

Alternatively reword to remove the slash:

Risk and Issue Management

Risk and issue management is important because it will help you highlight ...

Community
  • 1
Hugo
  • 67,535
2

The Slash [ / ]

The slash is also known as the solidus, the slant, the oblique or oblique stroke or simply the stroke.

...

to show alternatives:

(i) Your coach/train/boat/plane ticket;

(ii) He/she should go...

Both the forward slash (/) and the backslash (\) are used in computing.

  • In this US-based site there is a space and upper case is kept: UCLA.edu

slash (/)

Add one space after a slash.

Payroll/ Personnel

receipt/ invoice

mplungjan
  • 29,914
  • The second link seems to be broken – Achim A Aug 26 '13 at 07:57
  • So in conclusion both variations seems to be possible? – Achim A Aug 26 '13 at 07:58
  • The conclusion so far is that British suggest not and UCLA's rules suggest to keep the initial cap. See new link. Perhaps it is session based :( – mplungjan Aug 26 '13 at 07:59
  • 1
    That extra space in the UCLA suggestion looks messy. Maybe it's just a way of fooling some specific search or line-break function into treating the second option as a whole word? – DavidR Aug 26 '13 at 08:16
  • I would have to ask UCLA :) – mplungjan Aug 26 '13 at 08:26
  • 1
    @mplungjan Re:"The conclusion so far" That doesn't surprise me. We Brits have a tendency to capitalise less than AmE does in other areas also, e.g. in titles & headings. – TrevorD Aug 26 '13 at 14:41
  • Wonder how that answers the question at hand. – Kris Aug 29 '13 at 08:32
  • queens-english society does not, the UCLA writing guide does. Why is that not relevant to give an indication of what to do if British or US? I could not find anywhere a hard rule in OED or similar, so this is as close as it gets for me. If useful for the asker, great. Obviously not good enough for you, so find a better source. – mplungjan Aug 29 '13 at 08:35
  • The general recommendation is to use a spaced slash only when the elements it is separating themselves contain spaces. And even them, the spacing should be symmetric. Also, one should only ever use a real slash, not a backslash, for such separations. I don’t much like slashes in regular prose myself. – tchrist Aug 31 '13 at 12:27