45 Capital Letters

Capital letters are a key signal in everyday life. Look around any store to see their importance: you can shop for Levi’s or any blue jeans, for Coca-Cola or any cola, for Kleenex or any tissue. As these examples show, one of the most common reasons for capitalizing a word is to indicate that it is part of a name or title—of a brand, person, article, or something else.

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Learning English Capitalization

FOR MULTILINGUAL WRITERS

Capitalization systems vary considerably among languages, and some languages (Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, and Hebrew, for example) do not use capital letters at all. English may be the only language to capitalize the first-person singular pronoun (I), but Dutch and German capitalize some forms of the second-person pronoun (you). German capitalizes all nouns; English used to capitalize more nouns than it does now (see, for instance, the Declaration of Independence).

Editing for Capitalization

AT A GLANCE

  • Capitalize the first word of each sentence. If you quote a poem, follow its original capitalization. (45a)
  • Check to make sure you have appropriately capitalized proper nouns and proper adjectives. (45b)
  • Review where you have used titles of people or of works to be sure you have capitalized them correctly. (45b and c)
  • Double-check the capitalization of geographical directions (north or North?), family relationships (dad or Dad?), and seasons of the year (winter, not Winter). (45d)
  • In email, check to see that you have not capitalized whole words or phrases. (45d)