Capitalisation Quick Guide
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Here's the thing — capitalisation looks simple until you're halfway through a job application, an essay title, or a report heading and you start second-guessing every other word. This is the map, not the lesson: a quick UK/US scan you can run before you hit send. Every row links home to the article that actually teaches it, so if a row raises a "but why?", follow it back to [P7 · Capitalisation].
Reading the Status column: Rule = fixed, do this. Tendency = strong preference, but house style varies. And the honest headline before you start — most of capitalisation is shared, so most rows below say same both sides.
| Situation | UK | US | Status | Home |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First word of a sentence | Capitalise it (and the first word after a full stop [US: period]). | Same. | Rule — same both sides | [P7 · Capitalisation] |
| The pronoun I | Always a capital. | Same. | Rule — same both sides | [P2 · Pronouns], [P7] |
| Proper nouns — people, places, brands | Capitalise (Bristol, the Thames, Nike). | Same. | Rule — same both sides | [P7 · Capitalisation] |
| Days, months, holidays | Capitalise (Monday, April, Christmas). | Same. | Rule — same both sides | [P7 · Capitalisation] |
| Nationalities & languages | Capitalise (French, British). | Same. | Rule — same both sides | [P7 · Capitalisation] |
| Titles & headings — title case vs sentence case | Publisher's choice; many UK outlets and departments lean to sentence case for headings. | Publisher's choice; US academic and news guides often lean to title case. | Tendency — depends on the publisher, not on the country | [P7], style-guide summaries (piece 13) |
| Organisations & institutions | Capitalise the official name (University of Bristol, the BBC); lower case when generic (a university, the government). | Same. | Rule for the name; lower case when generic — same both sides | [P7 · Capitalisation] |
| Job titles | Capitalise before a name (Prime Minister Starmer); usually lower case standing alone (the prime minister said…). House style varies. | Same pattern (President Biden / the president). | Tendency — house style — same both sides | [P7], style-guide summaries (piece 13) |
| Academic subjects | Lower case for the subject (history, biology); capitalise languages (English) and named courses (Introduction to Linguistics). | Same. | Rule — same both sides | [P7 · Capitalisation] |
| Seasons | Lower case (spring, summer, autumn, winter). | Same. | Rule — same both sides | [P7 · Capitalisation] |
| Compass directions vs regions | Lower case for direction (drive north); capitalise a named region (the North, South Wales). | Same principle (the South, the Midwest). | Rule for direction; tendency for regions — same both sides | [P7 · Capitalisation] |
| First word after a colon | Often lower case unless a full quoted sentence follows. | Leans towards a capital when a complete sentence follows. | Tendency — a genuine, mild split | [P6 · Punctuation], [P7] |
One honest line on title case. Whether you write The History of Modern Britain or The history of modern Britain is almost always a publisher or style-guide decision — not a UK-versus-US grammar law. Match the house style you're writing for; when there isn't one, sentence case is the safer everyday default. The specifics live in the style-guide summaries (piece 13).
Where the columns say "same," they mean it. Spelling and vocabulary differences — organisation/organization, maths/math, autumn/fall — are word choice, not capitalisation, and they belong in [P8 · Spelling, Morphology & Word Choice]. I haven't invented a capital-letter divergence to fill a cell; a blank there would be the honest answer.
Where next
- [P7 · Capitalisation] — the full teaching for every row above.
- Style-guide summaries (piece 13) — title-case and house-style specifics.
- Master UK/US Index (piece 10) — the wider UK/US map, spelling and vocabulary included.
¶ Field Notes — free
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