Capitalization

It seems fairly simple and easy how capitalization works in English language. But when you dig deeper inside you come to know that everything is not that easy. Since childhood we know that the first letter of the first word is capitalized in each sentence. What we don’t know is that capitalization is not limited to the first letter of the first word of a sentence. There are in fact seven rules of capitalization which I will discuss in this article.

Rule 1:

Capitalize the first letter of the first word.

Example:

The room is empty.

Rule 2:

Capitalize the proper nouns like names of people, cities, countries etc.

Example:

Mr. Smith is a good teacher.

He visited Washington last year.

Rule 3:

No capitalization after a colon.

One common misconception is that letter is capitalized after colon but it should not.

Example:

There is only one thing that I wish for: a world tour.

Rule 4:

Capitalize the first letter of the first word of a quote.

Example:

Sara said, “Let’s not worry about it right now.”

Rule 5:

Capitalize the names of days, months and holidays.

Example:

I’ll not be here in January.

Do not capitalize the seasons.

Example:

My favorite season is summer.

Rule 6:

Capitalize the main words of a title of anything.

Example:

We were asked to read The Little Women by Tuesday.

Rule 7:

Capitalize events and time periods.

Example:

People used to lead simple lives in the Middle Ages.