When writing a title, should you capitalize the word “me” in the title?
This question is debated by many writers and scholars of the English language as many feel that all words of less than five characters should not be capitalized. The flip side of that argument is that the two-character word “me” should be capitalized because it is a pronoun and considered a major part of speech.
Others will argue further that typically, “me” is used as the subject, and the subject should definitely be capitalized. Otherwise, it might downplay the significance of the subject and the premise of the story or article altogether.
Luckily, there are style manuals that set the rules for writing. This includes writing text along with writing titles.
Is Me Capitalized in a Title?
The three most commonly consulted style books are the Associated Press Stylebook, the Chicago Manual of Style, and the Modern Language Association Handbook. Though lesser-used, the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, the Wikipedia Manual of Style and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association are also used by writers and scholars alike.
While two of the most commonly used manuals, the Chicago Manual of Style and the Modern Language Association follow the rule that all words of less than five letters should not be capitalized, they both consider all pronouns, regardless of letter count, important enough to be capitalized.
When writing titles such as “Take Me to the River,” the two-letter word “me” is capitalized because it is a pronoun. In the same title, the two-letter word “to” is not because it is a less significant preposition and is of less than five characters long. Similarly, the word “the” is not capitalized because it is also a less significant article and also has less than five characters.
So, the short answer to the question of whether or not to capitalize “me” in a title is, yes, you should capitalize it in titles.
To learn more about proper title capitalization rules, give our free title capitalization tool a try.
