¶ The Library

Capitals

You already capitalise Tuesday, English and Google without thinking — here's the map for everything else

Curated by Roger Fielding 11 articles

Adults UK & US

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Every article, one shelf

Start here Two Rules Capitals Hang From 3 min read Two anchor rules answer most of it — everything else is just one of them stretching

Capital When Specific (Titles, Directions, Sun/Moon/Earth) 11 min read A red line under 'Mum' in a history essay — when family terms and titles need a capital
Capitalisation in Letters, Emails, Headings & Lists 12 min read Stuck between Dear and Hi with an empty subject line — capitalisation for emails, headings and lists, sorted
Capitalising the First Word of a Sentence 11 min read Re-reading that 4:55 Friday email, the second paragraph forgets to capitalise a sentence
Capitals After Colons, in Quotations & Around Punctuation 11 min read A colon, then a capital or lowercase letter — the rule that actually holds
Names of People, Places, Organisations & Brands 14 min read A wobbly 4:55 email drops a capital from a company name — how names actually work
Proper Nouns & Proper Adjectives — The Core Rule 12 min read Your essay gets a pink underline under 'romeo' — proper nouns and adjectives, capitalised for good
Special Capitalisation Cases: Getting "I", Acronyms, Brand Styling and Religious Terms Right 12 min read IPhone lowercases its own name, yet English never lowercases I — the quirks worth knowing
The Trap of Over-Capitalisation 12 min read That Friday email where every Department and Team suddenly needs a capital letter — when to stop
Title Case or Sentence Case? Titles & Headlines 12 min read You've finished the report and now you're stuck: capitalise every word, or just the first