capitalize.m

function S=capitalize(S,skipset)
%function S=capitalize(S) 
% Capitalize the first character in every word (excluding short words) in input
% string S, or in every word in every string in input cell array S.  The first word
% is always capitalized.
%
% Default set of words to skip is {'a','an','and','or','in','the'}
%
% function S=capitalize(S,skipset)
% User-supplied cell array of words to skip 

if nargin<2 
    skipset={'a','an','and','or','in','the'}; 
end
skipset=lower(skipset);


if iscell(S)
    S=cellfun(@(x) capitalize(x, skipset),S,'uniformoutput',false);
else
    skip=0;
    Sw=regexp(S,'[ \t]','split');
    skip(2:length(Sw))=ismember(lower(Sw(2:end)),skipset); %skip(1) is always 0
    Sw(~skip)=cellfun(@(x) [upper(x(1)) x(2:end)],Sw(~skip),'uniformoutput',false);
    S=sprintf('%s ',Sw{:});
    S(end)='';
end