in the united kingdom. mi6 is the branch responsible for international espionage. the us has its fbi, south africa has its boss, israel its mossad and the republic of ireland its g2. spies love abbreviations. Then, in britain there’s mi1, mi8, mi9 and, ultimately, wx, the butlins of the spy world.
That’s a paragraph shorn of capital letters. It’s readable, with some effort, but how much easier would the eye glide through it were the beginnings of sentences and names guide-posted with capital letters – not to mention abbreviations!
Using capitals to flag the start of sentences is clear enough but confusion surrounds the capitalising of certain nouns and names. Try this Capital Quiz:
Capital Quiz
Of this dozen nouns and names, half are incorrect.
Which ones?
the Army, Spring and Autumn, bulldog, Great Dane, union jack, Vincent Van Gogh, jacuzzi, french fries, Renaissance, Venus, new testament, down under.
[Answers: the army, spring and autumn, Union Jack, Vincent van Gogh, Jacuzzi, New Testament, Down Under. The others are correct.]
Some capitalisations are logical but many are not. Some are consistent throughout the language while others are arbitrary, differing from country to country and even from one publisher or newspaper to another. Here, as a guideline, are the generally accepted capitalisations for a range of fairly common nouns and names.
A Guide to Capitalisation
| Sentences | Begin every sentence with a capital letter. |
| First Person | Always capitalised: I said I was going out. |
| Pronoun | Capitals do not follow commas, semicolons or colons except where the following word is a name or proper noun. |
| Aircraft | Concorde, Boeing 747, Fokker, etc. |
| Armed Forces | British Army, Italian Navy, Brazilian Air Force, but army, navy, air force. The Royal Marines, but marine. Ranks are capitalised: Sergeant, Admiral, Lieutenant, etc. |
| The Calendar | Monday, March, Good Friday, the Millennium Dome but the new millennium. |
| Compass Points | north-west, south-south-west, but mysterious East, deep South, frozen North. |
| Days | Christmas Day, Derby Day, New Year’s Day, etc, but happy new year. |
| The Deity | God, Father, Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, Almighty, Jehovah, Supreme Being, Jesus Christ, Son of Man, Holy Trinity, Redeemer, Saviour, He, Him, Thee, Thou; Virgin Mary, the Virgin, Madonna, the Holy Mother, Our Lady; Allah, Buddha, Muhammad, the Prophet, etc; Holy Bible, New Testament, Book of Common Prayer, Ten Commandments; all names from the Bible. Hades, but hell; heaven but Heaven when referring to the Deity. |
| Diplomatic | Nicaraguan embassy (embassy is usually lower case) |
| Dog Breeds | Capitalised: Afghan hound, Airedale terrier, Basenji, Great Dane, Kerry blue, Labrador, Newfoundland, Pomeranian, Samoyed, Schnauzer, Cairns terrier, Scotch terrier. Lower case: basset hound, bulldog, bull terrier, cocker spaniel, golden retriever, lurcher, pug, poodle, rottweiler. Check a good dictionary for other breeds. |
| Exclamations | Oh! Ahrrgh! Wow! |
| Flora and Fauna | Arab horse, Shetland pony, Montague’s harrier, but hen harrier (caps where proper name is involved). Plants are lower case but with scientific names, orders, classes, families and genuses are capitalised; species and varieties are lc: Agaricus bisporus. |
| Geographical | the West, the East, the Orient, Northern Hemisphere, Third World, British Commonwealth, the Gulf, the Midlands, the Levant, the Continent, the Tropics, the Left Bank, etc, but eastern counties, facing north, oriental life, tropical fruit, northern Britain, western fashions. |
| Headlines | With cap and lc headlines, capitalise nouns, pronouns, verbs and words of four or more letters. Generally, capitalise No, Not, Off, Out, So and Up but not a, and, as, at, but, by, for, if, in, of, on, the, to – except when they begin headlines. Capitalise both parts of hyphenated compounds: Sit-In, Cease-Fire, Post-War. |
| Heavenly Bodies | Mars, Venus, Ursa Major, Halley’s Comet, Southern Cross, Milky Way, etc. |
| History and Historical Names | Cambrian Era, Middle Ages, Elizabethan, the Depression, Renaissance, Year of the Rat, Georgian, Victorian etc. |
| Law and Lords | Lord Chancellor, Black Rod, Master of the Rolls, Lord Privy Seal, Queen’s Counsel. |
| Local | |
| Government | council, but Kent County Council, Enfield Borough Council, Lord Mayor of Manchester. |
| Member of Parliament | member of parliament, but when abbreviated, MP. |
| Nations, Nationalities | Venezuela, Alaska, Brits, Estonians, Sudanese; Arabic, Latin, Hellenic, Parisian. Indian ink, Indian file, Indian clubs but indian summer. French polish, French stick, French kiss, French letter but french window. Morocco but morocco bound. Chinese but chinaware; Turkish bath, Turkish delight. |
| Personification | The family gods were Hope and Charity. |
| Political Parties, terms | Tory, Conservative Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Communist Party but communist, communism; Thatcherism, Leninist, Luddites, Marxist, Gaullist etc. |
| The Pope | the Pope but popes; Pope Paul, Pope John etc. |
| Proper Names | Names of people (Tony Blair, Spice Girls); places (Europe, Sydney, Mt Everest); titles (Pride and Prejudice, Nine O’Clock News); epithets (Iron Duke, Iron Lady); nicknames (‘Tubby’ Isaacs, ‘Leadfoot’ Evans). |
| Quotations | Capitalise the first word of complete quotations (The boss asked him, ‘Well, where’s the money?’), but not partial quotations, words or phrases. |
| Races | Aztecs, Shawnees, Aboriginals, Asiatic. |
| Religious Names | the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church etc, but church, synagogue, temple, cathedral. Rev Adam Black, Fr O’Brien, Sister Wendy, Mother Teresa, Archbishop of Canterbury; Catholics, Jew, Jewish, Semitic, anti-Semitism, Protestants, etc. |
| Royalty | The Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales, Queen Mother, Princess Anne, the Crown. |
| Our Rulers | Her Majesty’s Government, House of Commons, Prime Minister (PM when abbreviated), Secretary of State, Chancellor of the Exchequer. |
| Satirised References | In Crowd, Heavy Brigade, She Who Must Be Obeyed, Bright Young Things, Her Indoors. |
| Scouts | Scouts, Guides, Cubs. |
| Seasons | spring, summer, autumn, winter (all lc). |
| Ships | Cutty Sark, HMS Invincible, Titanic. |
| Street Names | road, avenue, crescent, square etc, but Highfield Road, Spring Avenue, Eagle Crescent, Sloane Square. |
| Titles | Sir Thomas More, Lord Asquith, Mr and Mrs, Dr, etc. |
| Trade Marks, Names | Hoover, Peugeot, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Gillette, Durex, Xerox, Aspro, Kodak, Persil, Jacuzzi etc. |
| Van, Von etc | When writing Dutch names, van is lower case when part of the full name (Hans van Meegeren, Vincent van Gogh) but capitalised when used only with the surname (Van Gogh, Van Dyke). One exception is former US president Martin Van Buren. The same applies to den (Joop den Uyl, Mr Den Uyl). With Germanic names, von is always lc. With Da and D’ prefixes (Mayor D’Amato, Louise d’Amato) there is often inconsistency; such names require checking. |
| Wars | World War I, Boer War, Seven Years’ War etc. |
| Miscellany | Americanisation, anglicise, bologna sausage, braille, Central American, Caesarean section (but cesarean
|