Using Accents on French Capitals

Using Accents on French Capitals You may have heard that capital letters are not supposed to be accented. This may be good advice, but, really, whether to use  accents  on French capital letters is entirely up to you. Most of the time they are not essential, and so most French speakers do not add them. In publishing, they have not been added either ever since Vogue magazine decided about 20 years ago that they were too small to be read in print and detracted from clarity and good design; much of the publishing world agreed and followed suit. That said, there are actually two instances when you should always use accents on capital letters: Avoid Embarrassing Misunderstandings or Mistakes Look at what happens when  an advertisement for  biscuits salà ©s (salted crackers) is written in all caps:  BISCUITS SALES, a LOL-worthy mistake that means dirty crackers. Yum!  Its so much clearer to write BISCUITS SALÉS, nest-ce pas? There are plenty of  examples of French homographs like the case above, words that are spelled alike (or almost alike) but mean different things, where failing to add an accent or accents could lead  to embarrassing results. Consider haler (to haul in) versus hà ¢ler (to tan); arrià ©rà © (backward) versus arrià ¨re (backlog); and interne (internal) versus internà © (an inmate in a mental hospital), to name a few. Proper Nouns: The Name of a Company or a Person. Its important to show respect to organizations and people by spelling their names correctly, as well as to make sure that the person who reads the name knows how it should be spelled. If you dont write the accent when the name is in all caps, your reader may not realize that there is an accent when that individual sits down later to write a letter to the person or organization in question. What the  Acadà ©mie Franà §aise Says Some people argue that it just makes more sense  to always use  accents on capital letters in French. And the august  Acadà ©mie franà §aise  agrees: On ne peut que dà ©plorer que lusage des accents sur les majuscules soit flottant. On observe dans les textes manuscrits une tendance certaine lomission des accents. En typographie, parfois, certains suppriment tous les accents sur les capitales sous prà ©texte de modernisme, en fait pour rà ©duire les frais de composition. Il convient cependant dobserver quen franà §ais, laccent a pleine valeur orthographique. Son absence ralentit la lecture, fait hà ©siter sur la prononciation, et peut mà ªme induire en erreur. Il en va de mà ªme pour le trà ©ma et la cà ©dille. On veille donc, en bonne typographie, utiliser systà ©matiquement les capitales accentuà ©es, y compris la prà ©position  ,  comme le font bien sà »r tous les dictionnaires, commencer par le  Dictionnaire de lAcadà ©mie franà §aise, ou les grammaires, comme  Le  Bon Usage  de Grevisse, mais aussi lImprimerie nationale, la Bibliothà ¨que de la Plà ©iade, etc. Quant aux textes manuscrits ou dactylographià ©s, il est à ©vident que leurs auteurs, dans un souci de clartà © et de correction, auraient tout intà ©rà ªt suivre à ©galement cette rà ¨gle.