Most often while writing, some people are confused when it comes to capital letters; which word should start with a capital letter and under what circumstances?! This is because Capital Letter usage is mostly done by intuition by most of us; do you know exactly when to use capital letters? If yes, I invite you to see if you got it right - if no, you have come to the right place, continue your reading below.

When To Use Capital Letters?

1) Beginning of a sentence

This is the very basic and classical usage of capital letters in the english language and any language since old times.

2) When using proper nouns

E.g:
Wakish, Duffy, London, Manchester, November Jupiter, etc.

3) For adjectives formed from proper nouns

E.g:
Elizabethan poets, Scotch whisky, the French language

4) When using ’special proper nouns’

Please note that ‘special nouns‘ is not an official word class, but it is just how I’m personally tagging the following:
E.g:
God, Christ, Bible, Trinity, etc.

5) For a pronoun or possessive adjective applying to ‘God’

E.g:
“They trusted in God that He would save His people”

6) For the first person singular, I

But this does NOT apply for ‘me, my, etc..’

7) For personification (often used in poetry)

E.g:
- If Winter comes, can spring be far behind? (Shelley)

8.) For the chief words in title of people, books, plays, etc.

E.g:
Elizabeth the Second, Alfred the Great, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Tale of Two Cities

9) For salutations or forms of addressing (often in letters)

E.g:
Dr, Mr, Mrs, Miss, etc.

10) In letters, for the greeting and complimentary close

E.g:
Dear Sir,…
Yours faithfully,…

11) When using abbreviations of degrees, titles, etc..

E.g:
B.Sc ==> Bachelor of Science
Q.C ==> Queen’s Counsel
M.P ==> Member of Parliament

12) For the opening words of direct speech

E.g:
“Blogging is my passion as well as my job”, said Darren Rowse

But the capital letter should not be repeated in the second part of a broken quotation:

“I am working hard now,” he said, “in order to provide for my old age.”

13) For the first word in each line of poetry

E.g:
First liner..
Second liner..
Third liner..

But this convention, as far as I remember, is however being disregarded by modern poets. (New generation, new styles)

Have I missed Any Other Uses Of Capital Letters?

If you think so, please do use the comment form below to add to this list, thanks.

Certain words tend to create confusions in the way they are written. Why is this? I have tried to think about it and I came with the reasons below.

Why Are Words Mis-Spelt?

1) Knowing more than one language == writing confusion

Words are written in different forms in different languages; for instance, for a person (like me) who makes frequent usage of french and english in my daily life, I tend to get confuse when writing some words. Let’s take the example of the word ‘enemy‘.
In english it is written as ‘enemy‘ and in french it is written as ‘ennemi‘ - so I used to write it as ‘ennemy‘.

Possible Solution:
From my experience, I had made a list of words which I tend to write wrongly and I tried to memorise them and at times doing the homework of writing them several times. This method proved to have been useful to me. (May be you have another solution? If so, please use the comment form below to let me know..)

2) Some people simply do not put enough effort in learning to write well.

What about people who know only one language? I have relatives living across different parts of the globe. When I see my cousins from France or England or U.S write, I see they do make mistakes (at times too silly a mistake) despite the fact that their written language is their mother tongue. Then why those mistakes?! The simple answer to this is: ‘These people are careless with the language, they are not enough attentive and not putting enough effort to learn their language. (Read Why Writing?)

3) Some words are written differently from their pronounciation.

4) Stop writing == emergence of poor writing

There is a fourth point which I have figured out. When a person is very good at a language but has not been writing for a long period of time, he/she still gets affected (I have experienced this myself). As goes the saying: “practice makes perfect” - You have to constantly keep in touch with writing too. (And this is one of the reasons why I blog )

List Of Words Commonly Mis-Spelt

Commonly Mis-Spelt Words

On this blog, I repeatedly preach that it is very crucial you know the basics of the english language and to strengthen your vocabulary to help you write good english. But the key part of this language system is having the right dictionary. Regular use of your dictionary will help you develop your personal vocabulary book much healthier. It is vital that you keep a good dictionary handy. But how to know which dictionary is the desired one? Continue reading..

Characteristics Of A Good Dictionary - The Right Dictionary’s Habits

1) Tells you how words are spelt
2) Tells you how words are pronounced
3) Gives you the different meanings of words
4) Gives examples of how the words are used under their respective context
5) Gives you the plurals of nouns
6) Tells you whether a noun is countable or not
7) Gives you the synonyms and the antonyms of words
8.) Gives you words derived from the same root or family
9) Gives you the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives
10) Gives you the past tense and participle forms of verbs
11) Tells you the syllable of a word to stress
12) Tells you the origin of some foreign words
13) Gives you the meanings of useful phrases
14) Tells you the level of usage of a certain word
15) Tells you whether a certain word is a slang word, a taboo word, a formal word, an informal word, an archaic word, a colloquial expression, etc.

If you see a dictionary providing all those above points, it is a good candidate to be considered as the right or good dictionary. For instance, I can convincingly recommend you to use The Concise Oxford Dictionary; I have been using it for the last 6+ years and it has been (and is) a great tool to enhance my english language.

Last time during the explanation on “What is a punctuation“, I mentioned that the uses of commas will be elaborated in a later session and this is exactly what this article is focussed on; so fasten your sealt belts.

What Is A Comma?

→ A comma is a sign or punctuation mark which denotes the shortest pause and the least amount of separation between words, phrases or clauses.

Importance Of Commas

→ The comma is the most frequently used punctuation mark and has an array of uses.
Is this a coincidence, is this a chance?
Of course not! As I previously told you, a punctuation mark helps to translate or convey the exact voice inflexion from spoken to written words. And when anyone talks, there’s always a series of short pauses. Now by definition, a comma marks a short pause.

Now be careful to not overuse commas, that is, do not use too much of it in your sentence. Why? It will spoil the meaning of your sentence and making it confusing for your readers. A sentence with many unecessary commas often leads to several interpretation.

When To Use Commas?

Your common sense and the desire to make your meaning clear, will usually guide you where a pause is needed. Just try to say aloud what you want to write and see for yourself where you make obvious pauses. Everything comes with practice and maturity of your writing skills.

General Uses Of Commas - When Are Commas USed?

1) To separate words in a list or series

E.g:
→ Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Fernando Torres were the top three players nominated for the FIFA world player of the year.

2) To mark off direct speech

E.g:
→ Aliya said, “He’s the handsome I was telling you about the other day.”

3) To mark off or separate expressions like: “however, infact, of course, therefore, after all, indeed, for instance“, from the rest of a sentence

E.g:
→ Indeed, Manchester United won the prestigious title of the world best football club.
→ It was, however, too expensive for our budget.

4) To show Ellipsis

E.g:
→ You may go your way; I, mine.
→ He will soon succeed; you, never.

5) To mark off question tags.

E.g:
→ The new year’s eve was great, isn’t it?

6) To separate short co-ordinate clauses

E.g:
→ Please run upstairs, go to my room, get me my bag.
→ I came, I saw, I conquered.
→ When it rained, we got wet.

7) To mark off nouns in apposition

E.g:
→ Problogger, Darren Rowse, is very much loved and solicited in the blogosphere.

8.) To separate clauses in a compound sentence.

E.g:
→ Mickels Rea was very busy with his first official album, so he did not come to the last Star Academy get-together party.

Pitfalls:
In Complex Sentences, the comma should not be used when the omission of the Relative Clause would make the Principal Clause meaningless or would change its meanings. (Explanation of the red words in a later session)

E.g:
Consider the following sentence:
→ “Shakespeare plays which were written in the years 1604-1609 are all tragic and sombre.”

⇒ Now, if commas marked off the clause as follows:
“Shakespeare plays, which were written in the years 1604-1609, are all tragic and sombre.”

This would completely change the whole meaning of the sentence and would thus convey the main meaning of: “Shakespeare plays are all tragic and sombre.”

Is this what the original sentence wanted to say? No, the original meant that only those written in the years 1604-1609 were tragic.

Got it? So, be careful when using commas.

Last Words..

There are other different ways in which commas are used, but I have brought forward only the most common and important ones. Commas can be used as per your intuition since different people and writers essentially have varied styles - but provided you convey the right meaning without ambiguities. In any case, I would to love to hear your comments below..

Essay Words With Meaning And Sentences To help You

1) Scalded => burnt by hot liquid or steam

Jirel took the scalded girl to hospital.

2) Spooky => scary

The old house was huge, dusty and spooky.

3) hundle huddle => crowd together

The girls huddled together in fear.

4) shabbily => poorly dressed with worn-out clothes

The old man, lying at the post office, was shabbily dressed.

5) advent => arrival

The advent of the iPhone 3G has created a big craze among youngsters and adults alike.

6) loathe => dislike greatly

Some travellers actually like them while others loathe them.

7) nutritious => high food value

Above all, the daily food you eat may not be nutritious.

8.) dismay => shame consternation

We starred at the teacher in great dismay.

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