Capitalisation

As our name is often the very first word we learn to write, capitalising the first letter becomes intuitive. However, this is not the only case in which capital letters are used: the first letter of a sentence, titles, proper nouns, and so on, must always be capitalised. Many people still make mistakes with capitalisation in their writing; proofreading is a great way to avoid these grammatical errors, however, it is also important to familiarise yourself with the common grammatical rules.

Let's have a look at why capital letters are important in English and how we should use them in our writing.

Capitalisation Definition

Uppercase and Lowercase Letters

Capitalisation Rules

There are several rules for how we place capital letters in writing, for example, the following must always be capitalised:

• The first letter of a sentence
• The first letter of a name or title
• The pronoun 'I'
• The first letter of a proper noun
• The first letter of speech

Let's look at when we should use capital letters in more detail along with some examples.

The first letter of a sentence:

You should always use a capital letter when beginning a new piece of writing or starting a new sentence.

The following introduction to JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937) shows the interaction between new sentences, full stops and capital letters. Each sentence ends with a full stop and the new sentence starts with a capital letter.

Titles a capitalised. For example, 'The Hobbit'. - Pixabay

The first letter of a name or title:

A person's name has capital letters for the first letters. This would include their surname and titles such as Mr, Mrs, Sir or Madam.

In the example below, even though the capitalised word 'Gollum' is in the middle of a sentence, it must be capitalised as it is the name of a person and therefore a proper noun.

The pronoun 'I' :

Unlike other personal pronouns like 'he', 'we', 'they', 'she' or 'it', the pronoun 'I' is always capitalised.

In this quote from Samwise Gamgee, we can see that the pronoun 'I' is capitalised:

The first letter of a proper noun:

The first letter of proper nouns is always capitalised. Some examples of proper nouns could be the names of countries, cities, nationalities, languages, religions, political parties, time periods, days, months or events.

The first letter of speech:

When a person or character speaks, the first letter of the first word in the direct speech must be capitalised. For example:

In the above quote, we can see that the first letter in each speech bracket is a capital letter.

Capitalisation rules for titles:

Most words in a title require capitalisation such as the first word, nouns, verbs and adjectives. Unless they are used as the first word in the title, conjunctions, articles, and prepositions are not capitalised.

In abbreviations:

Typically, acronyms (abbreviations formed from the first letters of other words that can be put together to form a new word) are written in capital letters so that they can be distinguished from ordinary words.

Similarly, initialisms will capitalise the first letters of the words involved. Unlike acronyms, initialisms cannot be pronounced as words.

People's titles are also often abbreviated. If a title is abbreviated, the first letter will be capitalised.

All-caps for emphasis:

When a writer wishes to emphasise certain words, they may occasionally use all caps. However, this isn't a recommended format within formal writing as it may be perceived as childish, aggressive (like shouting), or excessive.

Warning signs use capital letters to attract attention - Pixabay

Why is Letter Capitalization Important?

Capital letters are important signposts for readers. The purpose of capital letters include:

• Making it clear when a sentence starts.
• Identifying important keywords in titles.
• Signalling respect towards people's names and titles.
• To signal proper nouns

The incorrect usage of capital letters will make a formal or non-fiction piece of writing stand out, and not in a good way! Poor orthography (spelling, punctuation and letter capitalisation) can indicate that little effort and attention has been put into the work, thus undermining its credibility.

What Confusions Can There Be With Letter Capitalisation?

One mistake that people make in their writing is placing capital letters where they don't belong. In this section, we will clarify how you can avoid this.

Capital letters and colons

One common mistake is to put a capital letter after a colon, however, this is incorrect.

Latin abbreviations

There is often a great deal of confusion when it comes to capitalising Latin abbreviations. Some Latin abbreviations, such as the following, are not capitalised:

However, others are capitalised as the Latinate meaning has been overwritten, such as in the following cases:

Why might someone ignore capitalisation rules?

The rules around letter capitalisation have been actively disregarded by several fiction writers to emphasize various points or communicate alternative meanings.

Mark Z. Danielewski's debut novel House of Leaves (2000) places capital letters in a seemingly sporadic manner in a series of written letters between characters in the appendices. These capital letters reveal an ulterior message encoded in the writing, which allows another layer to be added to the narration.

EE Cummings often disregarded conventions around capitalisation and other grammatical formations, in order to utterly deconstruct the traditional forms of poetry and make his own unique. The following poem, for example:

By deconstructing word boundaries and transgressing capitalisation rules, the poem presents hurdles that force the reader to focus more on the words and explore the mystery for themselves.

The writer bell hooks (or Gloria Jean Watkins) disregarded the grammatical rules around capital letters in her pen-name. The purpose of this was to draw greater emphasis and attention to the work, rather than herself.