Grammar Rules: Capitalization

Rules of Capitalization

• A capital letter is used at the beginning of a sentence.
• Examples: "The bear in the zoo was a big one." "Cycling is a good form of exercise." "His favorite pastime is reading mystery stories."
• A capital letter is used with proper nouns.
• Examples: "On Saturday morning we have Inter School Soccer Match." "Ali and Ahmed are good tennis players." "Mother Teresa was born in Skopje, Macedonia on Monday, August 27, 1910."
• When looking at a calendar, days of the week and months of the year are always capitalized, including abbreviations.
• Examples: "Monday", "Saturday", "January", "December", "Ramadan", "Eid", "Christmas", "Hanukkah", "Easter", "Thanksgiving"
• Seasons are not capitalized unless part of a title or proper noun.
• Examples: "winter", "spring", "summer", "fall" (or "autumn") are not capitalized, but "Winter Olympics" is capitalized.
• A capital letter is used with adjectives derived from proper nouns.
• Examples: "Mughal era", "Persian architecture", "Chinese restaurant", "Dickensian character", "Pakistani bag"
• The pronoun "I" is always capitalized.
• Example: "My parents say I spend too much time surfing the Internet."

Capitalization in Titles and Headings

• In title case, the first word, adjectives, nouns, verbs, and last word are capitalized.
• Examples: "The Glass Menagerie", "A Few Good Men", "Of Mice and Men", "Fools Rush In", "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "Spider-Man: Far From Home"
• Abbreviations formed from the first capital letters are capitalized.
• Examples: "BBC" for "British Broadcasting Corporation", "UAE" for "United Arab Emirates"

Punctuation Marks

• There are 14 commonly used punctuation marks in English grammar.
• The three sentence-ending punctuation marks are the period, question mark, and exclamation point.
• The period is used at the end of declarative sentences.
• The question mark is used to indicate a direct question.
• The exclamation mark is used to show strong emotion or give a command.

Comma Usage

• Commas are used to separate elements in a series, introductory phrases, and tag questions.
• Examples: "We purchased some cheese, and we purchased some fruit." "As the day came to an end, the fire fighters put out the last spark." "She is your sister, isn't she?"

Apostrophe Usage

• Apostrophes are used to show omission of letters in a word, indicate possession, and form plural nouns.
• Examples: "He's" for "He is", "Charles's army", "The girl's uniform", "Six people were told to mind their p's and q's."

Quotation Marks

• Quotation marks are used to enclose direct speech and show that a phrase is being written exactly as it was originally said or written.
• Examples: "She asked me, 'How are you?'", "Ali told the teacher, 'I saw Umar at the playground, and he said to me 'Fahad started the fight,' and I believed him.'"