Capitalization

Capitalize......

• the beginning of a sentence: There is no such business as show business.
• the personal pronoun “I”: This is the place I like best.
• “the” in proper names only if it’s an inseparable part of the specific name: I really like the Pogues, I’ve been to their concert in The Hague.
• personal names and nicknames: Robin, Babe Ruth, Peter Piper, the Sultan of Swat, Stonewall Jackson, Joe “Nine Fingers” Jackson ...
• kinship terms when they immediately precede a personal name, or when they are used alone in place of a personal name: I told Mom about Uncle Joe. Don’t capitalize “mom” and “dad” whenever they are used as generic terms: I told my mom about my uncle Joe.
• proper names such as house names, roads, districts, towns, postcodes, countries, continents, oceans, rivers, lakes, deserts, mountains: Tom lived in a tiny room in Rosebud Cottage on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. Don’t capitalize city, town, county, etc. if it comes before the proper name: the county of Clare, Clare County, the city of New York, New York City, but: New York state ...
• specific regions, but not points of the compass: the South (but: southern areas, or in the south of Malta), the Midwest ...
• famous districts or neighborhoods: the South Side (of Chicago), the Upper West Side (of New York) ...
• deities and personifications: God, Fame, the Eight Immortals ...
• reverential pronouns (referring to God): Let us praise Him, for He hath created heaven and earth and all living beings. This practice, once common, has been abandoned by many non-Christian writers.
• ethnic groups, nationalities and languages: In my experience, many Spaniards love the English language.
• historical eras: The Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance.
• planets and other celestial bodies: Mars, Halley’s Comet ... . Don’t capitalize: the earth, the sun, the moon...
• departments and institutions: the Department of Applied Sciences , the Ministry of the Interior, Stuttgart University,the German Red Cross, The Teachers’ Assembly ….
• adjectives that are derived from proper names: Elizabethan, Dickensian, Kafkaesque ... . Don’t capitalize adjectives from proper names if they have already acquired a broader meaning: of gargantuan proportions (= extremely huge, from Rabelais’ novel), herculean (= of strong physical built, from the Greek hero Hercules), quixotic (= both heroic and ridiculous, from the hero of Cervantes’ classic novel Don Quixote), draconian (= very strict, from the Athenian lawgiver Draco) ...
• titles: Mr, Mrs, Dr, Aunt, Uncle, Lord, Superintendent, Dad, Rev., M.P., Capt., President Obama, Doctor Johnson, but not for occupations: coach Ben Fury, 27-year-old athlete Germaine Williams, the last president of Uganda. Egalitarian writers refuse to capitalize the Queen (of England) or the Pope. In personal address, capitalize titles that show special respect: I really don’t know, Doctor. – Aye, Captain!
• brand names starting with a small letter: EBay is major player in the field of online marketing.
• days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday...
• brand and product names: Mitsubishi, Coca-Cola, a Big Mac...
• months of the year: January, February, December...
• festivals: Easter, Christmas, Ramadan, Bank Holiday Monday, New Year’s Eve, Mothering Sunday, Passover, Thanksgiving...
• each new line in a (traditional) poem: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, / And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: ...
• some acronyms and abbreviations: NATO, WHO,WoW, Unesco (BE), UNESCO (AmE)....
• titles, for all important words such as nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, numerals: The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mocking Bird...
• the first word after the greeting in a letter: Dear Ruth, Your letter…
• some recipes and food terms: Joe’s Walnut Crumble, a Pizza Margarita, Tabasco sauce ...
• some plants, especially for those parts that contain family names or geographical names or refer to cultivars: a Golden Delicious apple, Douglas fir, a Jerusalem artichoke
• some medical conditions named after people, Epstein-Barr syndrome, Parkinson's disease
• the first letter in a closing phrase: Yours sincerely, Thomas.
• the first letter of a quotation, a formal statement, or a complete sentence: This what most people dislike most: If writers don’t capitalize anything at all, or if they capitalize each and every word.- According to Shakespeare, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”
• the first letter of a quote or parenthesis that consists of a full sentence: Such statements (All Germans are evil) lead to a bias in the media. – According to Johnson’s Brief Introduction to the World Molluscs, “Garden snails can usually be found in moist places.”
• in legal documents, when the full name of an individual or company is later referred to in short form: Albert Horowitz (Plaintiff), Monsanto (the Company)...