The Use Of Capital Letters In The English Language
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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.
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Thank you for the comprehensive indeed reminder about the appropriate writing of the capital letters.
While our words reveal our thoughts, the way we display the letters seal up our emotions. You help us to do that rightly. Thank you.
Nice post. Use of Capital in the English language is very important. Thanks for sharing good information.
I think capitalization is a part of the absolute core basics in grammar. I feel that if you make many errors along these lines, then you are probably making many other errors. I struggle sometimes with commas and semicolons, dashes etc these can be a bit tricky and grammar was never my forte.
i can’t stop thanking you for the time and effort you used to upload this article. you won’t believe it but this article has really helped me alot. ONCE AGAIN, THANK YOU.
@Nuel Briggs:
Thank you so much for the kind words. I’ll do my best to get back blogging. Thank you for the appreciation and for being around.
- Wakish -
Dear Wakish:
Thank you very much for the deatiled information on Capitalization. It has helped me a lot. I have one question, see the msg. below, it talks about the bullring, which i know the B should be capatilized, but how come in the last line bullring-the B is not capatilized? i am a bit confused. Please help.
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Did you get them all?
If you look out over the city of Birmingham you can see a vast jungle of large buildings.
Birmingham is a great industrial city.
When I was very young David and I used to visit the city every weekend. We would travel down on a Friday and stay till Sunday. The one place I always wanted to visit was the Bullring in the centre of Birmingham, I just loved the idea of seeing this place. I didn’t know that the bullring was a shopping centre
Hello Sandra, thank your for your comment.
About your confusion, here is the explanation:
1) Bullring in the first sentence is being used as a proper name, and the description after it gives you a clue of its intended meaning. That is, ‘Bullring in the centre of Birmingham’ implies that the word “bullring” is the name of a place/complex.
2) In the second sentence, the word bullring is being used as a word, just as any commonn word. It tries to say, ah that “bullring” is actually the Bullring of Birmingham.
Is my explanation clear? If you are still confused, please let me know and I will try to explain it again in any way.
Cheers!
Hey this post is very helpful for me as English is my second language. But why Wakish brother is not posting any more for a long time . . . Please PLEASE COME BACK WAKISH
Sabuj,
thank so much for your comment, it gave me I felt a strange happiness, I will do my best to get back soon. Lets all hope for a better 2010.
Cheers!
Thank for your Lesson! I hope to write correctly later especially for my blog!
Thanks for this information . It helped me a lot in my assigment in english. !! :))