BASIC CAPITALIZATION RULES

RULE EXAMPLE

1. Start the first word in a sentence with a  The concert is in Manchester. It won’t be
capital letter: difficult to go there from Liverpool.

2. The pronoun “I”(first person singular) is  Jordan and I are childhood friends
always capitalized:

 Mr. and Mrs. Obama are visiting our city on

3. Use capital letter when you address Friday.
people with their formal or professional  I am sorry, Dr. Chandler is not available on
titles: Wednesdays

 HMTQ (Her Majesty the Queen), HRH (His/Her

4. Use capital letters for royal titles: Royal Highness)
 The Prince and the Princess of Wales opened a
new NHS hospital in York.
 The Queen used to spend her summer holidays
at Balmoral in Scotland.

5. Proper names (specific people and places)  Gwen and Bill are married with three children.
begin with capital letters:  Jessica lives on Wilson Avenue in Philadelphia

 Appalachian Mountains
Geographical locations (cities, states,  Quebec
6. countries, provinces, lakes, seas,  The Himalayas
mountains, rivers etc.) begin with capital  Salt Lake City
letters:  The Amazon
 Istanbul which is the largest in Turkey bridges
Europe and Asia.
 Turkey is surrounded by the Black Sea, The
Aegean Sea, and the Mediterranean.
 BASIC CAPITALIZATION RULES
RULE EXAMPLE
 St. James Park
 Pentagon
Use capital letters for roads, highways,  Empire State Building
7. public areas ,streets, buildings and  Eiffel Tower
monuments:  Route 66
 Baker Street

8. The name of languages and nationalities  My sister can speak Spanish, Italian and
begin with capital letters: French but speak none.
 Haruki Murakami is a well-known Japanese
writer.

Most words in titles of paragraphs,  Life of Pi

9. essays, books etc. are capitalized but do  War and Peace
not capitalize prepositions, conjunctions  The Catcher in the Rye
or articles unless they are the first word  A Room with a View
of the title:

 Nick is taking History 101

10. Specific course names are capitalized:  I like reading history books
(general subject-no capital letter)

11. Capitalize mother, father, aunt etc. when  Ask Father when he’ll be home for dinner.
these words are used as names: (You can use his first name here)

 You can submit your essay on Wednesday.

Capitalize days of the week, months of  I was born in May.
12. the year and holidays:  Open your presents on Christmas Day.

! Do not capitalize the seasons:  22nd of September is the first day of autumn.
 I am thinking of finding a part-time job in
summer.
 Delta Airlines
13. Capitalize the name of businesses and  Colgate toothpaste
official trade names:  Nike
 Kellog’s cereal

BASIC CAPITALIZATION RULES

 RULE EXAMPLE

 Eid al-Fitr is an important religious festival in

14. Capitalize the name of religions and the Islam.
deity  God
 Koran
 Bible

Capitalize particular sections of a country:  Southern cooking of the United States

15.  East Coast is a highly populated area in the
United States.
! Do not capitalize words that simply  If you keep driving east, you’ll end up New
show direction: York.

 World War II
16. Capitalize the names of historical events,  Middle Ages
documents and period of time  Renaissance

 British Army
17. Capitalize the names of armed forces and  American Navy
ranks  Lieutenant

18 Use capital letters for exclamations  Ouch! It hurts

words:  Oh! That was just a misunderstanding, sorry.

19. Use capital letters for heavenly bodies:  Mars Venus Uranus
 Halley’s Comet

 Queen’s Council
Use capital letters when you use titles  Kent County Council
20. related to law, government institutions,  Conservative Party
political parties, rulers and lords: House of Commons House of Lords
 Sir Keir Starmer has written 14,000 words of
essay for 2021 Labour Party Conference.

CAPITALIZATION EXERCISES:
For each sentence, correctly write any word that is not properly capitalized:
1. my name is alex.
2. i am a student.
3. i study english.
4. january is the first month of the year.
5. prime minister is addressing the nation tonight.
6. i’m writing a research paper on leonardo da vinci’s early works in florance.
7. you need to drive north to reach chicago.
8. The pope, the head of the roman catholic church, lives in vatican city.
9. the united kingdom comprises the whole of the island of great britain-which contains
england, wales and Scotland as well as the northern portion of the island of Ireland.
10. the president of the united nations general assembly urged nations to work together for
a sustainable future.
11. queen victoria ruled great britain until she died in 1901.
12. A group of people gathered at aston road and bromley street.
13. Kimchi is a traditional Korean dish made with fermented vegetables.
14. The cruise takes passengers from athens, creete and rhodes.
15. We waited in the queue for hours to get tickets to ride on the london eye or the
millennium wheel but it was worth it. When our capsule got to the top, we saw big ben,
buckingham palace, tower bridge and many other landmarks of the city. The view of the
whole london was breathtaking.
16.

EXERCISE:

Circle the letters that need to be capital letters:

Hi Elisa,

I hope you’re still having a fantastic time and enjoying hot, sunny beaches of Mallarco. I’m
stuck in rainy London and counting the days to have my well-deserved break. You can’t
imagine how things have radically changed in my life in the span of two weeks.

First, I’m not sure whether I should continue to work or not after the break since I am on
unpaid leave (for now!). I submitted my resignation letter to our head, Mr. Addison three
days ago, on Monday. It was a bit shocking for him, I assume. I must be the last person in
the company whom he expects to resign. He asked me to consider to take leave without
pay instead of cutting the ties completely.
I work well, earn well. My hard work is always recognized and I’m likely to get a promotion
soon. So, why do I want to quit everything? Because my happiness and mental wellbeing
are much more important than money and promotion.

My work has become more challenging and demanding since the company began to expand
overseas, which doubled my workload. Doing overtime almost every week, travelling to a
different country twice a month and having to cancel my holidays affected me and my
upcoming wedding. You know, my wedding is on October 4, four months later to be precise
but I still haven’t decided what to wear, who to invite, what wedding cake to order because
of being so busy with my work.

I had a heated phone conversation with my wedding planner two weeks ago.

I hung up the phone angrily. Alejandro who witnessed how nervous and angry I was, calmly
asked me: “ Oh dear, are you a bridezilla or becoming one? Would you like me to make
chamomile tea?” I was stunned and shouted at him: “What? What are you talking about?
I’m trying to plan everything by myself, out smoothly, but there is always You know, it
helps people relax and calm down. As far as I know Mrs.

he knew how to put me into my place, politely and nicely without having a I can say that
was a kind of enlightening moment for me- I realized how unpleasant, bossy and pushy I
might become if I put too much pressure on myself. I am learning to needed to be slow
down and take things easy.

yesterday , we learnt that Alejandro’s dad had had an urgent gastroenterology operation.
This means, his parents may not be present at the wedding because it can be dangerous for
his father’s health to fly approximately 26 hours, including transfers. I’m quite sorry because
both my parents and I were looking forward to meeting them in person. We even arranged
a two week England tour for them but I think we’ll cancel that as well.