Core Grammar #9: Capitalization

The Big Letters

Fortunately for us,

• capitalization rules in English are quite simple,
• the rules are consistent (not a matter of feeling or opinion),
• they haven't changed very much in at least 100 years (which means that the material you learned in the third grade is still good), and
• the computer actually gives us some help here (though, as usual, the help is a bit uneven).

Capital letters show up in four places:

1. the first word of a new sentence,
2. proper nouns,
3. the first person singular pronoun "I", and
4. the major words of a title.

Capitals are not for emphasis

We do not use capitalization to show how we would say something loudly or for any other kind of emphasis. If you want to do something like that, use italics. Follow the rules and be consistent. Do not write like this:

At my house, we have a Dog, three cats, two fish, and a Gerbil.

1. First word of a sentence

Every sentence begins with a capital letter. That is simple enough, but there are a couple of complications: If an independent clause follows a colon (the way this one does) it also begins with a capital letter, and if a sentence (or two or three) appears within quotation marks or parentheses, the first letter is also capitalized.

John said, "I love you. Let's get married."

Help from the computer—sort of:

Microsoft Word is quite good at capitalizing the first letter that follows an end punctuation (period, question mark, or exclamation mark), but it doesn't understand the colon rule, nor does it often pick up the first word in a quotation.

Trouble spot #1:

If you have not figured out how to use the computer yet and you are hitting the return/enter key at the end of each line, the computer thinks each line is a new paragraph and it will capitalize the first letter. Fix this by learning how to type on a computer.

Trouble spot #2:

The computer figures out that something is a new sentence by looking at spacing. It assumes that a word with an end punctuation tight against it (period, question mark, exclamation point) followed by a space is the end of a sentence. If you type like this:

This is the end of the sentence. this is the beginning of a new one.

The computer will probably correct it:

This is the end of the sentence. This is the beginning of a new one.

If you put that space and period in the wrong place, the computer will not capitalize the beginning of the sentence for you:

This is the end of the sentence .this is the beginning of a new one.

Trouble spot #3:

The grammar checker will force a capital letter after the period of an abbreviation—and the only to fix it is to go back and fix it after you type it. (Abbreviations, by the way, are losing their periods.)

You want to write this: That comment from a new Ph.D. candidate in history is familiar.

The grammar checker forces this change, but it is wrong: That comment from a new Ph.D. Candidate in history is familiar.

2. Proper nouns

The word proper comes from Latin, and means "one's own, special." Common nouns are the names of general groups of things. Proper nouns (the ones we capitalize) are particular to individuals, so we get:

Some proper nouns are unique, and the computer is good at picking these up and capitalizing the first letter if you forget: England, Robert. Other proper nouns are made up of common nouns and adjectives (National Football League), and the computer misses those entirely. If you type "united states of america," the computer only capitalizes the last word for you—which is wrong. (Our country is the United States of America—capitals on the first letter of every word except of.)

These Words Always Get a Capital

Some words never show up without the first letter capitalized—and if you don't know these, most teachers and most bosses will think you are extremely uneducated:

• English (and the names of other languages)
• Columbus (and the names of other cities and towns)
• Ohio (and the names of other states)
• American (and the names of other nationalities)

Google Docs Trouble Spot

Google Docs can capitalize the first word of a sentence for you (if you type it the way I described above), but it is totally unaware of proper nouns (and it is not too good with commas either). Google Docs finds nothing wrong with this sentence:

I come from columbus ohio and i am taking a english class at ashland university

Trouble spot: Parents and other family members

Relationship words such as mother, father, grandmother, and many others can be used in two different ways:

• The common noun sense: using the word as a label for members of a group. ("My father came to visit last week.")
• The proper noun sense: using the word as if it were someone's name. ("I called Grandmother to tell her we were coming.")

Here's an informal test. If you can substitute someone's name (a proper noun) in the sentence, capitalize the relationship word; if you cannot, then use lower case.

• "My Richard came to visit last week." No—we don't usually refer to people that way, so you want lower case: "My father came to visit last week."
• "I called Viola to tell her we were coming." Yes, that's a natural English sentence, so you are using the word as a proper noun. Capitalize it: "I called Grandmother to tell her we were coming."

Trouble spot: School Subjects

Names of school courses are not usually proper nouns. The exceptions are the languages (which would be proper nouns whether they are courses or simply names of the languages themselves). Here is how you should discuss your academic schedule:

This semester I am taking physics, history, English, art appreciation, and Spanish.

3. First person singular pronoun

Few rules are more simple: When you refer to yourself as "I", the letter gets capitalized. Fortunately, Microsoft Word's grammar checker always gets this one right, and often makes the change automatically. Unfortunately, Google Docs does not make this change for you, so if you are too lazy or sloppy to make the change, your writing will look like it was done by a lazy, sloppy person:

When i first came to Ashland, i was very impressed with the campus. This fall im going to be a student here.

4. Major words of a title

The first word, last word, and all the major words of a title are capitalized (not words like of or the). The grammar checker will never find these for you.

Title formatting, the biggest secret in education

As long as we're on the topic of titles, I'll mention a standard practice which has been around for at least fifty years and yet somehow is completely unknown to my students: what to do with titles of things.

• Titles of big stuff in italics. If it was published as a book or is a "container" publication (like a newspaper or a TV series), put the title in italics:
  • An early novel by Ernest Hemingway was The Sun Also Rises.
  • I enjoy reading the articles in the Los Angeles Times.
• Titles of little stuff in quotation marks. Shorter pieces such as individual poems, short stories, and newspaper articles are printed in quotation marks:
  • I asked my class to read "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe.
  • "Alice's Restaurant" was a well-known anti-war folksong of the 1970s.

More information:

• Capitalization, a web page from Capital Community College Foundation.

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author.

The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by Ashland University.

Revised 7/18/22 • Page author: Curtis Allen • e-mail: callen@ashland.edu.