CAPITAL LETTERS

The capital letters are: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

The small (lower case) letters are: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

In modern English, most nouns are written with an initial small (lower case) letter. However in the following cases we use capital letters.

1. Names of particular people, places or things

John, Anna, Mr Smith, the Rolling Stones, the United States of America, the Daily Express (a newspaper), the Jupiter Symphony

2. The titles of particular people

Mr and Mrs (or Ms*); Miss (or Ms*) Cynthia Brown, the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Anne, the Duke of Royston, the President, the Prime Minister

3. Days of the week, months of the year and public holidays

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Easter, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, Independence Day

4. Nationalities

the English, an Indonesian, a Frenchman

*Ms is a currently accepted neutral from which can replace Mrs or Miss.

Notes

• We also use a capital letter to start the first word of a new sentence:

The children looked out of the window.

It was snowing outside.

The personal pronoun I is always written with a capital.

• Titles of books, plays and films are also written with initial capital (usually only the important words - nouns, adjectives and verbs) e.g. Great Expectations, A Student's Grammar of English, The Da Vinci Code, The Rainbow Troops.

• Chapter headings may be written with capitals or small letters.

e.g. Chapter Three: The Management of the Economy

        Chapter Three: The management of the economy

Source: Allsop, Jake. 1990. Cassell's Students' English Grammar. Indonesia: Binarupa Aksara.