Capitalization: Capital Letter Rules, Proper Nouns, Title Case & Sentence Case

For beginners · ages 5–8

What a capital letter shows

A capital letter is a tall letter: A, B, C. It does two jobs.

Notice that cat, goats, bus and fox stay small. They say what kind of thing, not which one.

"Is it a beginning or a name?" is the first question of a test you will use all through this chapter - it gets its full name, the Name Test, in Section 8.

Here is the big question to ask about any word: does it start the sentence, or does it name one particular someone or somewhere?

A word like cat or city could mean lots of cats or lots of cities. It says what kind of thing. A name points to just one: Motu is not any cat, Motu is our cat. Pune is not any city, Pune is one city you could find on a map.

And a word can be small in one sentence and tall in the next. "our cat" is small in the middle of a sentence, but "Our cat is sleepy." starts with a capital - because now Our begins the sentence.

Picture every word in a sentence standing in a line. Most of them are sitting down - small letters. Two kinds of word stand up tall. The first word stands up because it is leading the line. And any name stands up wherever it is, like a child who hears their own name called out. Everyone else stays sitting.

Capital letters have two other names. Many teachers call them upper-case letters, and they call small letters lower-case letters. The names come from the old days of printing, when metal letters were kept in two wooden trays, or cases - the capitals in the upper case and the small letters in the lower case. So a capital, a tall letter and an upper-case letter are all the same thing.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes a word does both jobs at once. "Kofi has a red kite." Kofi starts the sentence. Kofi is also a name. So which job is the capital doing? Both! It would need a capital even if it came in the middle: "Today Kofi has a red kite." Now try the opposite. "Dogs love to run." Dogs starts the sentence, so it gets a capital. But dog is not a name - it is a kind of animal. Move it to the middle and it goes small again: "Our dogs love to run." Here is a test you can use. Imagine the word moving to the middle of the sentence. Does it stay tall? Then it is a name. Does it go small? Then its capital was only there because it started the sentence. This test grows into the Name Test in Section 8.

Did you know that not every alphabet has capital letters? In English, every letter has a tall form and a small form: A and a, B and b. But Hindi, Marathi and Sanskrit are written in a script called Devanagari, and Devanagari has no capital letters at all. A name like अमित (Amit) looks the same at the start of a sentence as in the middle. The reader knows it is a name from the word itself. Many other scripts have no capitals either - the ones used for Tamil, Bengali, Arabic and Chinese, for example. So when you write in English, you are using a script with two sizes of letter. Learning where the tall ones go is part of learning to write English. It is a new habit, not a sign that other scripts are missing something.

In this band, a capital does two jobs: it starts a sentence, or it starts a name. Later you will meet a few more places where capitals go - the word I (in Section 3), titles of books and films, and short forms like CBSE. You will also meet a few places where careful writers make different choices, and both are correct. We will always tell you when that happens. For now, the two jobs - a beginning and a name - will carry you a long way.

1. Start every sentence with a capital letter.
2. Give a capital to the name of one particular person, pet or place.
3. Keep kind words small - cat, friend, city, school.
4. Do not give a capital just because a word feels important.
5. If a word starts the sentence, imagine it in the middle: does it stay tall?
6. Look at the word next to a name - my friend Kabir - and keep the kind word small.
7. Read your sentence back and check every capital: beginning or name?
8. When you are not sure, ask: could this word mean lots of things, or just one?

• My cat is called Motu.
• Today Aarav fed the goats.
• The bus to Delhi was late.
• Look, Oliver has a new kite.
• Yesterday Emma saw a fox.
• Every morning Kofi walks to school.

• At the zoo, Meera saw a tiger.
• Our parrot Mithu can say hello.
• Can Irfan come to Kochi with us?
• The best player is Sophie.
• Please give Harry the red ball.
• Last week Ana visited Lima.

Every sentence starts tall

Every sentence starts with a capital letter. Not just the first one - every one.

Notice that the new first word can be tiny - It, The, Yes. Small words still start tall when they begin a sentence.

"Does the word begin a sentence?" is the first question of the Name Test, which you will meet by name in Section 8.

Here is the big question to ask: has a sentence just ended?

A comma is a short pause inside a sentence. It does not end anything, so the word after a comma stays small - unless it is a name, like Asha.

Only three marks end a sentence: the full stop, the question mark and the exclamation mark. After any of them, the next sentence starts tall.

And a new line of writing is not a new sentence. If a sentence runs out of room and carries on underneath, the first word on the new line stays small. Only a sentence ending makes a new start.

Picture a train of sentences. Each carriage is one sentence. The full stop, question mark or exclamation mark is the buffer at the back of a carriage. The capital letter is the engine light at the front of the next one. Every carriage needs its own light - a train where only the first carriage has one would crash in the dark.

A sentence that asks something ends with a question mark, and a sentence that shouts or shows surprise ends with an exclamation mark. Both of these marks have a full stop hidden at the bottom - look closely at ? and ! and you will see the dot. That little dot is a clue: like the full stop, they end a sentence, and the next word starts with a capital.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes a word after a comma is tall, and sometimes it is small. "We went to the park, and Asha came too." Asha comes after a comma, and it has a capital. Is that because of the comma? No! Asha is a name, and names are always tall. The word "and" after the comma stays small, because the sentence has not ended. Now look at this one. "We went to the park. And Asha came too." This time there is a full stop, so "And" starts a new sentence. It gets a capital - because it is the first word, not because it is important. Here is a test you can use. Look at the mark just before the word. Is it a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark? Then the word starts a sentence and stands tall. Is it a comma, or no mark at all? Then the word stays small - unless it is a name. This question - beginning or name? - grows into the Name Test in Section 8.

Did you know that the full stops and capitals you use were not always there? Very old writing in Greek and Latin was often written with no spaces between words, no full stops and no small letters - just one long line of tall letters, running on and on. Readers had to work out for themselves where each sentence stopped. Over hundreds of years, writers and copyists added spaces, then marks to show pauses and endings, and later the habit of a tall letter to start each new sentence. So the capital at the start of your sentence is a gift from those writers. It saves your reader the hard work those old readers had to do.

In this band, a new sentence starts after a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark. When someone speaks in a story, the rules for speech marks come in too. "Where are you?" asked Mum. Here "asked" stays small, because the whole sentence has not ended yet - the question mark belongs to Mum's words. You met this in the chapter on apostrophes and quotation marks (Chapter 17), and Practice looks at it again. Poems sometimes start every line with a capital, even when a sentence carries on. That is a choice poets make, and it is not wrong in a poem.

1. Give the very first word of your writing a capital.
2. After every full stop, start the next word tall.
3. After every question mark, start the next word tall.
4. After every exclamation mark, start the next word tall.
5. After a comma, keep going small - unless the word is a name.
6. Do not start a new line with a capital just because it is a new line.
7. Small words like it, the, and and then start tall too when they begin a sentence.
8. Read your writing back and check the word after every end mark.

• The lights went out. Then Nisha lit a candle.
• Is Farhan's shop open? Yes, it opens at nine.
• What a big wave! Kavya ran up the beach.
• Tom kicked the ball. It went over the wall.
• Where is my hat? Lily has it.
• The sun came up. Soon Mateo was awake.

• Our class went to the museum. Arjun liked the old coins best.
• Stop, Deepa! The bridge is broken.
• The train to Chennai was late. So we played cards.
• Can you swim? Jack can swim very fast.
• Ella fed the ducks. And the ducks were very happy.
• What a lovely song! Who sings it, Amara?

I always stands tall

The word I is always a capital. It does not matter where it sits.

Only I works like this. The other words for yourself - me, my and mine - stay small in the middle of a sentence.

"Is the word I?" is part of the first question of the Name Test, which you will meet by name in Section 8.

Here is the big question to ask: is it the word I, meaning me, the one writing?

So it is not every i that stands tall. It is only the word I, all on its own, or at the front of I'm, I've, I'll and I'd.

The letter i inside a word like kite or idli is just a letter. It stays small, unless the whole word starts a sentence or is a name: "Ice cream melts fast." "Irfan is here."

Picture the word I as a tiny lighthouse standing on the shore of a sentence. Whatever the weather, wherever the lighthouse stands - at the start of the beach, in the middle, near the end - it is always tall and always lit. The words around it, like me and my, are little huts that stay low.

The word I is called a pronoun - a small word that stands in for a name. When Asha is hungry, Asha does not say "Asha is hungry." Asha says "I am hungry." Other pronouns are you, he, she, it, we and they. In English, I is the only one that always has a capital. All the rest stay small in the middle of a sentence.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. The word I and the words me and my all mean you. So why is only I tall? Look at these. "I like my new shoes." "Dadi gave me a hug." "Can Zoya and I play?" In the first sentence, I is tall and my is small. In the second, me is small. In the third, I is tall in the middle. The rule does not care about meaning. It only cares about the word. The word I, on its own, is always a capital. The words me, my and mine are ordinary words - they get a capital only when they start a sentence: "My shoes are new." "Me? I am fine." Here is a test you can use. Point to the word. Is it the single letter I, all on its own, or I with an apostrophe after it? Then it is tall. Is it any other word, even one that means you? Then it follows the normal rule - tall only at the start of a sentence. This check grows into the first question of the Name Test in Section 8.

Did you know that English is unusual in giving the word I a capital? In French the word for I is je. In German it is ich. In Spanish it is yo. In all three languages, that word is written with a small letter in the middle of a sentence. Only English makes its I stand tall. And in Hindi, the word for I is मैं (main). Devanagari has no capital letters at all, so it looks the same wherever it sits. Why did English choose a capital? Nobody knows for certain. One common explanation is that a single small i, all alone, was easy to miss or to mistake for part of the next word, so writers began to make it tall. Whatever the reason, the habit stuck - and now every writer of English follows it.

The word I is always a capital in English. That rule has no exceptions in ordinary writing. In a quick chat with friends, you will often see people type a small i. Readers understand it, but it is still a slip - in school work, letters and emails, write I tall every time. Some writers and poets break the rule on purpose for a special effect. That is a choice they make, not a rule for everyday writing. And remember that the letter i inside other words stays small: kite, idli, fish.

1. Write the word I as a capital every time, wherever it sits.
2. Keep I tall after and: Rohan and I.
3. Keep I tall in I'm, I've, I'll and I'd.
4. Keep me, my and mine small in the middle of a sentence.
5. Keep the letter i inside other words small: kite, idli.
6. Before you send a message, look for every I and check it is tall.
7. Do not trust a phone to fix a small i - check it yourself.
8. When you are not sure, ask: is this the word I, all on its own?

• Can I sit next to Rohan?
• Yesterday Tara and I saw a peacock.
• After school I'm going to Anjali's house.
• Sam and I built a den.
• Do you think I can do it, Grace?
• Chen and I share a desk.

• Please tell Vikram I said hello.
• My sister and I like idlis.
• Can Zoya and I play cricket?
• Dad said Ben and I could stay up.
• I've lost my pencil, Ruby.
• In the morning I help Ayo feed the hens.

Names of people and pets

Every part of a name starts with a capital. The kind word beside the name stays small.

Notice that friend, dog, cousin and puppy could be lots of people or animals. The name picks out just one.

"Does it name one particular person or pet?" is the second question of the Name Test, which you will meet by name in Section 8.

Here is the big question to ask: is this word the name of one particular person or pet, or does it say what kind?

A surname is part of a name, so it stands tall just like the first name. A nickname - a name people call someone for fun, like Chintu or Bittu - is a name too, so it stands tall.

And the same word can be a name or a kind word. If a cat is called Tiger, Tiger is its name and stands tall. If you mean the big striped animal in the forest, tiger is a kind word and stays small.

Picture a name as a bright badge pinned on one person or one pet. The badge - Asha Menon, Bruno, Chintu - always has tall letters, so you can read it from far away. The word that says what kind they are - friend, dog, brother - is like the plain shirt under the badge. Everyone has a shirt; only the badge is theirs alone.

A surname is also called a family name or a last name, because it is often shared by a family and often comes last. Not every family puts it last, and not every person has one - some people use only one name. Whatever a person's name looks like, every part of it that is a name stands tall. An initial - one letter standing for a name, as in A. Menon - is a capital too.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Some words can be a name one day and a kind word the next. "Our cat is called Tiger." "We saw a tiger at the zoo." In the first sentence, Tiger is the name of one particular cat. It stands tall. In the second, tiger means the big striped animal - any tiger. It stays small. It works for people's names too. "Rose is my best friend." - Rose is a person's name. "Dadi grew a red rose." - rose is a kind of flower. Here is a test you can use. Ask: could I put "a" or "the" in front of it and mean any one of lots? "A tiger", "a rose" - yes, so it is a kind word. Or does it point to just one, the way you would call someone across a playground? "Tiger, come here!" - then it is a name. This is the heart of the Name Test in Section 8: name, or kind?

Did you know that some names have a capital letter in the middle? Some surnames are made of two parts joined together, and both parts stand tall. McDonald has a capital D inside it. O'Brien has a capital B after its apostrophe. And some famous names keep a small word in the middle. The painter Leonardo da Vinci has a small "da", which means "from" - he was Leonardo from the town of Vinci. The painter Vincent van Gogh is usually written with a small "van" in the middle of his name. So names do not all follow one pattern. The best rule is this: a name keeps the capitals its owner gives it. If you are not sure how a name is written, ask the person, or look at how they write it themselves.

In this band, every part of a person's or a pet's name gets a capital. Some names have their own special capitals - McDonald, O'Brien - or a small word in the middle, like van or da. Those names are written the way their owners write them, and you should copy that. Words like Mum, Dad, Nani and Dadi can be names too, when you call someone by them. That is a tricky one, and it gets its own section: Section 9, Mum or my mum? Words like Doctor and Principal before a name come in Practice.

1. Give a capital to a person's first name.
2. Give a capital to a surname too - it is part of the name.
3. Give a capital to a nickname - Chintu, Bittu.
4. Give a capital to a pet's name - Bruno, Motu, Laddoo.
5. Keep the kind word beside a name small - my friend, our dog, my cousin.
6. Keep an animal word small when it is not a name - a tiger, a puppy.
7. Copy the special capitals some names have, like McDonald.
8. When you are not sure, ask: is this one particular someone, or what kind?

• Asha Menon is in my class.
• My friend Asha has a kitten.
• We named our puppy Laddoo.
• Our dog Bruno loves Oliver Brown.
• The new girl is called Lucy Carter.
• My cousin Kofi has a parrot named Kiki.

• Our cat Motu sleeps all day.
• Rahul Sharma and Neha Das are in the team.
• Everyone calls my brother Chintu.
• Jack's cat is called Tiger.
• Emily took Snowy the rabbit to the vet.
• The goalkeeper is Diego Ramos.

Places you know

The name of one particular place starts with a capital. A word that only says what kind of place stays small.

Notice that the little word the in front of a river's name stays small: the Ganga. Only the name itself stands tall.

"Does it name one particular place?" is the second question of the Name Test, which you will meet by name in Section 8.

Here is the big question to ask: is this the name of one particular place, or does it just say what kind of place?

Some place names are two words, like Tamil Nadu or Mount Fuji. Every word of the name stands tall.

And words like my town, our village and the city stay small. They talk about a place, but they are not its name. "My town" might be Shimla for one child and Leeds for another - so it is a kind word, not a name.

Picture a map with little flags stuck in it. Each flag has a place name written on it in tall letters - Jaipur, Kochi, the Ganga, Mount Everest. The land, the water and the hills around the flags have no flags: they are just a river, a hill, a town. Only the places with a flag - a name - get a capital.

Places have names at every size. A country (India) is made of states (Kerala, Rajasthan), which are made of cities, towns and villages (Kochi, Jaipur), which have roads and parks. At every size, the name stands tall and the kind word stays small: the state of Kerala, the city of Kochi, a village near Udaipur. You will meet longer names, like the Bay of Bengal, in Practice.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes a kind word is part of a place's name, and then it stands tall too. "We climbed a mountain." "Mount Everest is very high." In the first sentence, mountain is a kind word. It stays small. In the second, Mount is part of the name Mount Everest, so it stands tall. Rivers work the same way. "We sat by the river." - river is a kind word. "The River Kaveri flows through Karnataka." - here River is part of the name, so it stands tall. Here is a test you can use. Is the word stuck to the name, so that together they make the name - Mount Everest, the River Kaveri? Then every part stands tall. Or does it stand on its own, with a, the, my or our in front - a mountain, the river, our village? Then it is a kind word and stays small. This is the Name Test's big question again: name, or kind? You will meet it by name in Section 8.

Did you know that the highest mountain in the world has more than one name? In English it is called Mount Everest. That name comes from George Everest, a surveyor who worked on mapping India in the 1800s. In Nepali it is called Sagarmatha. In Tibetan it is called Chomolungma. Many people in the region used these names long before the English one. All three are names for one particular mountain, so in English writing every one of them stands tall: Mount Everest, Sagarmatha, Chomolungma. Place names travel between languages and change their shape. Whatever shape they take, a name in English writing always starts with a capital.

In this band, the name of a town, city, state, country, river or mountain gets a capital, and kind words like river and city stay small. Longer place names with small words inside them - like the Bay of Bengal or the Gateway of India - come in Practice, where you will see why of stays small. Words like north and south, and names of regions like the North-East, also come in Practice. When a place has its own special way of writing its name, copy it the way the place writes it.

1. Give a capital to the name of a town, city, state or country.
2. Give a capital to the name of a river or a mountain.
3. Keep kind words small: city, river, mountain, village, sea.
4. Keep the in front of a river's name small in the middle of a sentence: the Ganga.
5. In a two-word name, give every word a capital: Tamil Nadu, Mount Fuji.
6. When Mount or River is part of the name, it stands tall too.
7. Keep my town and our village small - they are not names.
8. When you are not sure, ask: could I find this one place on a map by this name?

• Jaipur is a city in India.
• We took a boat on the Ganga at Varanasi.
• Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world.
• Our train crossed a river near Bristol.
• Ben lives in a small town in Wales.
• Wanjiru lives in Nairobi, a big city in Kenya.

• The Kaveri flows through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
• Our school trip went to a lake near Bhopal.
• Kochi is by the sea in Kerala.
• The River Thames flows through London.
• Alice climbed a hill in Scotland.
• From Tokyo you can sometimes see Mount Fuji.

Days and months (and why seasons stay small)

Days and months are names. Seasons are not.

A season still takes a capital when it starts a sentence: "Summer is hot in Delhi." That capital is for the beginning, not for the season.

The calendar check is step two of the Name Test - does the word name one particular thing? - and the Name Test gets its full name in Section 8.

Look at all the time words together and sort them into names and ordinary words.

Only two kinds of time word get capitals: the seven day names and the twelve month names. Everything else - seasons, times of day, weekend, today, tomorrow - stays small unless it starts a sentence.

Short forms follow the same rule. When you write the date quickly, Mon and Wed keep the capital, and so do Jan and Sept, because they are still the names, just shortened.

So there are two families of time words:

Names of days and months take a capital: Tuesday, August.
Ordinary time words stay small: summer, evening, weekend.

Picture a calendar hanging on the kitchen wall. Along the top, in big letters, is the month's name - JUNE - and across each row are the day names, Monday to Sunday, all standing tall like children in a line-up. Outside the window, the rain of the monsoon is falling. The rain is not written on the calendar, so its word stays small.

Names like Monday and June are called proper nouns. A proper noun names one particular thing, and it takes a capital letter. Words like summer, morning and weekend are common nouns - ordinary words for a kind of thing - and they stay small. You do not need the long names yet. Just remember: a day or a month has a name, so it stands tall; a season is an ordinary word, so it stays small.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Some words can be a month or an ordinary word. "May" is the name of a month. But "may" is also an ordinary word: "May I come in?" and "It may rain." "My birthday is in May." - the month, so it takes a capital. "You may go now." - an ordinary word meaning "are allowed to", so it stays small. The same thing happens with "march". "March" is a month. But "march" is also what soldiers do: "The band will march past the school." "Holi often comes in March." - the month, so a capital. "We march in the parade." - walking in step, so small. So you cannot just remember a list of words. Ask what the word is doing in this sentence. Is it naming a month on the calendar? Then it takes a capital. Is it doing some other job? Then it stays small. And "Sunday" is always a day, but "sun" is not: "We sat in the sun on Sunday."

Did you know that the day names hide old names inside them? Sunday is the sun's day, and Monday is the moon's day. Saturday is named after Saturn. Some of the other English day names come from old gods of northern Europe. Some months hide names too. July is named after Julius Caesar, and August is named after Augustus, two rulers of ancient Rome. So the days and months really are names - they began as the names of the sun, the moon, planets, gods and people. That is one good way to remember why they stand tall. And here is another surprise: in French, days and months are written with small letters - lundi, juin. Different languages have different capital rules. In English, they are names, and names take capitals.

A season takes a capital when it starts a sentence: "Summer is here." That capital is for the beginning of the sentence. In poems and stories, a writer sometimes gives a season a capital to make it sound like a person: "Winter came knocking at the door." That is a writer's choice, not a mistake. "May" and "March" are months only when they name the month. As ordinary words - "you may", "we march" - they stay small. Short forms keep the capital: Mon, Fri, Jan, Aug.

1. Give every day of the week a capital: Monday to Sunday.
2. Give every month a capital: January to December.
3. Keep the seasons small in the middle of a sentence: spring, summer, autumn, winter, the monsoon.
4. Use the calendar check: printed as a day or month name? Then a capital.
5. Keep morning, evening, weekend, today and tomorrow small too.
6. Remember that a season starting a sentence takes a capital for the beginning.
7. Check May and March: are they months, or ordinary words?
8. Keep the capital on short forms like Mon and Jan.
9. Read your dates and diary entries once, just for capitals, before you hand them in.

• Riya has a dance class every Friday.
• The monsoon reaches Kerala in June.
• Every winter, Arjun visits Shimla in December.
• Summer holidays start in July for Emma.
• On Tuesday, Jack planted seeds for spring.
• In Kenya, the school year begins in January.

• Pongal falls in January, in the cool season.
• Dadi says the mangoes are best in May.
• Winter mornings in Delhi can be foggy in January.
• Lucy goes to the beach every Sunday in August.
• The leaves turn red in autumn, around October.
• In Brazil, Carlos has a long holiday from December to February.

Festivals and special days

A festival's name is a name. The word "festival" is not.

"Diwali holidays" has one name and one kind word: the name stands tall, the kind word stays small.

This is step two of the Name Test - does the word name one particular thing? - and the Name Test gets its full name in Section 8.

Look at the special days of one year, from many traditions, side by side with the ordinary words around them.

In every row, the name keeps its capital and the ordinary word beside it stays small - even when the two sit right next to each other.

Notice "Day". In Republic Day and Independence Day, Day is part of the name, so it stands tall. In "a sunny day" or "a busy day", day is an ordinary word, so it stays small.

So there are two families:

Names of festivals and special days take capitals: Onam, Children's Day.
Kind words stay small: festival, holiday, parade, birthday.

Picture a string of lights across a street, with a lantern for every festival of the year. Each lantern has a name painted on it in tall letters - Diwali, Eid, Christmas, Pongal, Gurpurab, Navroz. The string itself, the thing that holds them all, has no name painted on it. It is just "the festivals", written small.

The name of a festival is a proper noun: it names one particular thing, so it takes a capital. Words like festival, holiday and birthday are common nouns: ordinary words for a kind of thing, so they stay small. A name made of several words, like Independence Day, is still one proper noun, so every main word in it takes a capital. You do not need the long names yet.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Some words are part of a festival's name in one sentence and ordinary words in another. "Happy New Year!" - New Year is the name of the special day, so it takes capitals. "We start a new year at school in June." - just a new year, an ordinary one, so it stays small. "Christmas Day is on 25 December." - Day is part of the name. "It was a lovely day." - day is an ordinary word. And look at birthdays. "My birthday" is always small, because everyone has one - it is a kind of day. But a special day with its own name keeps its capitals: "Children's Day" and "Teachers' Day" are the names of two special days in India. So you cannot just remember a list of words. Ask: in this sentence, is the word part of the name of one particular festival or special day? Then a capital. Is it an ordinary word? Then small.

Did you know that many festival names carry a meaning inside them? Diwali comes from Deepavali, an old word for a row of lamps - and rows of lamps are what you see at Diwali. Christmas comes from an old English phrase meaning Christ's Mass, a church service. Pongal is a Tamil word linked to boiling over - and at Pongal, rice and milk are cooked until the pot bubbles over, as a sign of plenty. In Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi and Arabic writing, there are no capital letters at all. So when a festival's name comes into English, English gives it the capital it gives every name: Diwali, Pongal, Eid.

A kind word takes a capital when it starts a sentence: "Festivals are fun." That capital is for the beginning. Some festivals have more than one name or spelling in English - Diwali and Deepavali, for example. Each form is a name, so each takes a capital. "New Year" takes capitals when it names the special day, but "a new year" stays small when it just means the next year. "Day" is capital only when it is part of the name: Republic Day, but "a rainy day".

1. Give every festival's name a capital: Diwali, Eid, Christmas, Pongal, Gurpurab.
2. Give every main word of a longer name a capital: Independence Day, Buddha Purnima.
3. Keep kind words small: festival, holiday, party, birthday.
4. When a name and a kind word sit together, capitalise only the name: the Diwali holidays.
5. Check "Day": part of the name? Capital. An ordinary day? Small.
6. Check "New Year": the special day, or just the next year?
7. Remember that a kind word starting a sentence takes a capital for the beginning.
8. Treat every tradition's festival names the same way - every name stands tall.
9. Read your cards and invitations once, just for capitals, before you send them.

• We light rows of lamps at Diwali.
• Ayaan wore new clothes for Eid.
• Pongal is a harvest festival in Tamil Nadu.
• Oliver helped decorate the tree for Christmas.
• On New Year's Day, Grace made a wish.
• Mei's family eats dumplings at Lunar New Year.

• Our school has a parade on Republic Day.
• Dadi lit a lamp for Buddha Purnima.
• Zubin's family visits the fire temple at Navroz.
• The Christmas holidays began on Friday.
• Sam lit the candles for Hanukkah.
• Every festival in Kofi's town has drums.

The Name Test

Three questions decide every capital. Ask them in order.

So the sentence "my friend asha and i live in pune, a big city." becomes "My friend Asha and I live in Pune, a big city."

This is the chapter's test. Every section from here on uses it.

Here is the Name Test run on every word of one sentence: "on friday, i took my dog bruno to the park near the ganga."

The finished sentence: "On Friday, I took my dog Bruno to the park near the Ganga."

Most words - took, my, to, the, near - pass straight through question 3. They are ordinary words, so they stay small. Only a few words in any sentence stand tall, and each one has a reason: a beginning or a name.

So there are two families:

Beginnings and names stand tall: On, I, Friday, Bruno, Ganga.
Kinds and ordinary words stay small: dog, park, river, took.

Picture a gate at the start of a path, with three signs on it: Beginning? Name? Kind? Every word in a sentence walks up to the gate one at a time. The first word and the word I stretch up tall. Names like Asha and Pune stretch up tall. Everything else - girl, city, park - walks through at its usual height.

The words that pass question 2 are called proper nouns: names of one particular person, place, day, month or festival. The words that fall to question 3 include common nouns - words for a kind of thing, like girl, city and river. In Practice you will meet more kinds of names - languages, titles of books and people - and the same test will decide them. You do not need the long names yet.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. The same word can be a kind in one sentence and part of a name in another. "We played in the park." - any park, so park is a kind: small. "We played in Cubbon Park." - Cubbon Park is the name of one particular park in Bengaluru, so Park is part of the name: capital. "We swam in the river." - a kind: small. "We swam in the Kaveri River." - part of one river's name: capital. "Our school has a big gate." - a kind: small. "The Gateway of India is in Mumbai." - part of a name: capital. So the test is not about the word on its own. It is about what the word is doing in this sentence. Ask: is it part of the name of one particular thing, or is it telling me what kind of thing? The same letters can get different answers in different sentences.

Did you know that capital letters do different jobs in different languages? In German, every noun takes a capital - not just names. A dog is "der Hund", with a capital H, even though it is any dog at all. In Hindi, written in Devanagari, there are no capital letters at all. Names and ordinary words look exactly the same, and readers know a name from the sentence around it. English sits in the middle. It gives capitals to beginnings and names, and keeps kinds small. That is exactly what the Name Test checks. So the test is not a rule for every language - it is the key to how English uses its tall letters.

A kind word still takes a capital when it begins a sentence: "Rivers flow downhill." That capital comes from question 1. A word can be part of a name in one sentence and a kind in another: Cubbon Park, but "the park". The Name Test decides capitals in ordinary sentences. In titles of books, headings and poems, writers sometimes follow other styles - you will meet those in Practice and Craft. If you are not sure whether something is a name, ask: could I look it up as one particular thing?

1. Ask the three questions in order: beginning, name, or kind?
2. Give the first word of every sentence a capital.
3. Write the word I tall, wherever it sits.
4. Give a capital to every name you could look up: people, places, days, months, festivals.
5. Keep kind words small: girl, city, river, festival, summer.
6. Never give a word a capital just because it feels important.
7. When a kind word sits beside a name - my friend Asha - keep the kind word small.
8. Check whether a word like park or river is part of a name in this sentence.
9. After writing, run the test on every capital and ask for its reason.

• My friend Asha lives in Pune.
• On Sunday, Kabir and I walked by the river.
• The Ganga flows past the city of Varanasi.
• Tom and I fed the ducks at the park.
• Our teacher, Mrs Hill, grew up in Leeds.
• Kofi lives in Accra, a city by the sea.

• We played cricket in Cubbon Park.
• Later, we played in a park near home.
• Priya saw the Gateway of India from the boat.
• I think my dog Max is the best dog in Bristol.
• Rivers like the Thames flow into the sea.
• Every August, Lucia visits family in Lima.

Mum or my mum?

A family word used as a name takes a capital. After my, your or our, it stays small.

This is the Name Test's question two - is it a name? - asked about family words. The Name Test is the one you met in Section 8.

Look at the words that come just before a family word. They are the clue.

A family word before a name works like a title, so it takes a capital too: Aunty Seema, Uncle Joe, Grandma Rose. But after my, it goes back to being small: my aunty, my uncle.

So there are two families of use:

Used as a name, or as a title before a name, it stands tall: Mum, Dad, Nani, Aunty Seema.
After my, your, our or an owner, it stays small: my mum, your dad, our nani.

Picture a family word holding two hats. When someone calls out "Mum!" or asks "Is Dadi awake?", the word puts on a tall name hat and stands up straight. When the word follows my or your - my mum, your dadi - it swaps to a small flat cap, because now it is only telling you what that person is to you.

Words like my, your, our and their are called possessive determiners, and they turn the next word into a kind word: my mum, our nani. When a family word stands alone as what you call someone, it works as a proper noun - a name - so it takes a capital. When you call out to someone directly - "Thank you, Nani!" - that is called direct address. You do not need the long names yet.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. One sentence can have the same family word twice - once as a name and once as a kind word. "Mum, is your mum coming for lunch?" The first Mum: you are talking to her, and you could swap in her own name. So it is a name - capital. The second mum: it comes after your. It means Mum's own mother - your grandmother. It is a kind word - small. Now try this one: "Nani, can my nani from Kolkata stay with us too?" Maybe you have two grandmothers. The first Nani is the one you are talking to - a name, so a capital. The second nani comes after my - a kind word, so small. And here is one more: "Aunty Seema is my favourite aunty." Before the name Seema, Aunty works like a title - capital. After my favourite, aunty is a kind word - small. Take each family word on its own, look at the word just before it, and run the swap test on each one. The same letters can get a different answer in the same sentence.

Did you know that families all over the world call each other by different family words, and English gives each one the same rule? In many Indian homes, children say Amma, Appa, Ammi, Abbu, Mummy, Papa, Nani, Dadi, Nana or Dada. In Britain, children often say Mum; in America, Mom. In Spanish-speaking families, a grandmother may be Abuela. Every one of these follows the same rule in English writing. Used as a name - "Thank you, Abuela" - it stands tall. After my - "my abuela" - it stays small. In Hindi, written in Devanagari, there are no capital letters at all, so the question never comes up. English is the language that asks it.

The school rule gives a family word used as a name a capital: Ask Mum. In quick, casual messages, many people write "ask mum" with a small letter, and that is common. In school writing, use the capital. "My mum" always takes a small m after my - even in a card to Mum herself. A family word before a name works as a title: Aunty Seema, Uncle Joe. When a family word begins a sentence, it takes a capital for the beginning: "Mums and dads are welcome."

1. Look at the word just before the family word.
2. After my, your, our, his, her, their or an owner's name, keep it small: my mum, Asha's nani.
3. Used as a name, give it a capital: Ask Mum. Is Dadi awake?
4. When you call out to someone, give it a capital: Thank you, Nani!
5. Before a name, treat it as a title: Aunty Seema, Uncle Joe.
6. When unsure, run the swap test with a name.
7. Test each family word on its own when a sentence has two.
8. Use the capital name form in school writing.
9. Check every family word in thank-you cards and diaries before you finish.

• Thank you for the ladoos, Nani.
• My nani makes the best ladoos.
• Can Appa pick us up after school?
• Ask Mum if we can go to the park.
• Harry's mum drove us to school.
• Our grandma in Nairobi calls every Sunday.

• Aunty Seema is coming for Holi.
• Is Dadi awake yet?
• Our dadi and dada live in Patna.
• Uncle Joe and my uncle Pete play chess.
• Good night, Dad, and thank you.
• Every summer, Sofia's grandad visits from Madrid.

First mixed review

Every capital needs a reason. Every missing one is a slip, and so is every extra one.

"last diwali, i visited my Cousin in jaipur in the Winter." becomes "Last Diwali, I visited my cousin in Jaipur in the winter."

This review uses the Name Test from Section 8 on everything Discover has taught.

Here are the Discover lessons in one table - the kind of capital each one taught, with a name and a kind side by side.

Every row has the same shape. The left side names one particular thing, or begins a sentence. The right side says what kind of thing, and stays small.

So when you check a sentence, you are not remembering seven rules. You are asking one question seven ways: beginning, name, or kind?

So there are two families, always:

Beginnings and names stand tall.
Kinds stay small.

Picture a sentence as a train of carriages, each carriage one word. You walk from the engine to the last carriage with a stamp in your hand. The first carriage always gets a tall stamp. Carriages carrying I, Asha, Jaipur, Monday or Diwali get a tall stamp. Carriages carrying city, summer or my mum get no stamp at all.

Checking every word, one at a time, is called proofreading. Good proofreaders read slowly, sometimes aloud, and look at one kind of slip at a time. You can proofread for capitals on their own, before checking spelling or full stops. The names of the words you have met - proper nouns and common nouns - come back in Practice, where the Name Test meets languages, titles and directions.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Some sentences have a missing capital and an extra capital right next to each other. "last Summer, i saw the taj mahal with my Aunty." Walk through it: last - the first word, so Last. Summer - a season, so summer. i - the word I, so I. taj mahal - one particular building, so Taj Mahal, both words. Aunty - after my, so aunty. "Last summer, I saw the Taj Mahal with my aunty." Six changes: four capitals added (Last, I, Taj, Mahal) and two taken away (summer, aunty). If you had only looked for missing capitals, you would have left Summer and Aunty wrong. If you had only looked for extra ones, you would have missed four. So test every word both ways. Does it need a capital it does not have? Does it have a capital it does not need?

Did you know that capital letters and small letters were once completely separate alphabets? Long ago, people carving words into stone used only big, straight letters - the ancestors of our capitals. Small letters grew later, from quick handwriting with pens. The names "upper case" and "lower case" come from printers. In old print shops, the metal letters were kept in two wooden cases: the capitals in the upper case, and the small letters in the lower case. Today, English uses both alphabets together, and the Name Test tells you which one each word takes. Every time you choose, you are doing the same job those printers did - reaching for the upper case only when a word needs it.

A kind word takes a capital when it starts a sentence: "Festivals are fun." A family word used as a name takes a capital in school writing - Ask Mum - even though many people write it small in casual messages. In poems, a writer may give a season a capital to make it seem like a person. That is a writer's choice. Titles of books, headings and messages have their own capital patterns. You will meet those in Practice.

1. Test every word, not just the ones that look wrong.
2. Check both ways: a missing capital, and an extra one.
3. Give the first word of every sentence a capital.
4. Write I tall, wherever it sits.
5. Capitalise names of people, pets, places, days, months and festivals - every main word of a longer name.
6. Keep kinds small: seasons, festival, city, river, friend.
7. Keep a family word small after my, your or our.
8. Read slowly, or aloud, when you check for capitals.
9. Give yourself a reason for every capital you keep.

• On Friday, Meera and I flew to Chennai.
• My nani lights rows of diyas every Diwali.
• Is Dadi coming to Lucknow for Eid?
• In winter, Ben and I go skating in York.
• Our cat Pickles sleeps all day on Sunday.
• Yuki's school in Osaka starts in April.

• Last summer, I saw the Taj Mahal with my aunty.
• Our school marches on Republic Day in January.
• Ask Amma if Rohan can stay for Pongal.
• At Christmas, Lily and I walk our dog Rex.
• The river near Jack's farm floods in spring.
• Every March, Amara visits a market in Lagos.

Building accuracy · ages 8–12

Languages and nationalities

Three kinds of word in this section are names, so all three take a capital - and so does any word made from them.

The words around them stay small when they only say what kind of thing: language, food, film, runner, meal, teacher.

This is question two of the Name Test: a language, a nationality or a people names one particular thing you could look up, so it takes a capital - and a word made from that name keeps it.

Many of these words do two jobs. The same word can name a language and describe a person or a thing from a place. Either way it is a name, so it keeps its capital.

Notice a small puzzle: an English teacher. It can mean a teacher of English or a teacher from England. Either way English is a name, so the capital stays. The word a or an in front changes nothing.

What stays small is the word that says what kind: language, food, film, subtitles, teacher. Write the Marathi language, not the Marathi Language.

Picture each language and each nation as a family with its surname painted on a banner. Every word that belongs to the family - India, Indian, Indians - carries the banner's capital with it. The words standing beside it - food, film, teacher - are guests from outside the family, so they keep their ordinary small letters, however close they stand.

The capital stays in plurals and in longer words built from these names: two Kenyans, the Japanese, Anglo-Indian, Indo-European. Hyphenated words get a chapter of their own (chapter 19). In the next section you will meet one place where a language behaves differently from the words around it - the school timetable, where English and Hindi keep their capitals but maths and science do not.

Here is the hard case, and it is worth slowing down for: a word that looks like a place name but has turned into an ordinary word. Think of china, the plates and cups. The country is China, with a capital. The plates were named after the country long ago, because fine pottery was brought from there. Today dictionaries list the plates with a small letter: a set of china, a china cup. So the Name Test still works, but you must ask it honestly. Does the word still point at the place or the people? Then it keeps the capital. Indian food comes from India. A Kashmiri shawl comes from Kashmir. Darjeeling tea is grown around Darjeeling. Each one still points home, so each one stands tall. Does the word now just mean a kind of thing, with no link to the place in the writer's mind? Then it may have lost its capital, as china has. Dictionaries record these changes one word at a time, so when you are unsure, look the word up. For the languages, nationalities and peoples in this section there is no doubt at all: Hindi, Kenyan, Maasai and their friends are always names.

Hindi has no capital letters at all. Devanagari, the script used for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and Sanskrit, has one form for each letter, with no tall and small versions. So a writer who moves between Hindi and English is moving between a script with no capitals and one that needs them in exact places. English is also unusual among its neighbours. French and Spanish write the names of languages in lower case: français, español. German goes the other way and gives every noun a capital. English sits in between: it capitalises names, including the names of languages, and leaves most other words small. So the capital on Hindi in an English sentence is not decoration. It is English marking a name, in its own way.

This section covers languages, nationalities and peoples. School subjects - where English keeps its capital but maths does not - come in the next section. Words that lost their capital over time, like china for plates, return in Craft (section 27). The names of faiths and their followers also take capitals, and Craft section 29 treats them with care. A few group names are written in more than one way in different places; when in doubt, follow the group's own usage and a current dictionary.

1. Give every language a capital: Hindi, Tamil, English, Swahili.
2. Give every nationality a capital: Indian, Nepali, Kenyan, Japanese.
3. Give every people a capital: the Maasai, the Sherpas.
4. Keep the capital in words made from a name: Indian food, a Tamil film.
5. Keep the kind word beside it small: the Marathi language, Punjabi food.
6. Keep the capital after a or an: an English teacher.
7. Keep the capital in plurals: two Kenyans.
8. If you also write French or Hindi, remember that English has its own rule here.
9. When a word may have lost its capital, like china for plates, check a dictionary.

• Kavya's grandmother speaks Malayalam and Tamil.
• We ate Gujarati food at the wedding.
• Many Sherpas in Nepal work as mountain guides.
• Oliver is learning French at school.
• The English teacher showed us a Welsh poem.
• A Kenyan runner won, and the crowd cheered in Swahili.

• Anjali's cousin runs a Kannada news channel.
• The Punjabi poem was translated into Urdu.
• Our class has Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and Indian students.
• Grace ordered a Thai curry and a Greek salad.
• The Scottish poet also wrote in Gaelic.
• In Mexico, most people speak Spanish, and some speak Nahuatl.

School subjects

In a sentence, a subject is lower case - unless it is a language, or a word in it comes from a name.

This is question three of the Name Test at work: maths and science only say what kind of study, so they stay small - while a language passes question two, because it is a name.

So why do timetables, report cards and textbook covers so often say Maths, Science and History with capitals? Because they are headings and labels, not sentences. Many schools write every subject on a timetable with a capital, and that is a house style - a choice the school makes and keeps.

Notice that a heading style never changes the rule for sentences. When you write about your day, maths goes back to being small.

And notice a subject that combines both: Hindi literature. Hindi is a language, so it stands tall; literature is a kind of study, so it stays small.

Picture your timetable as a row of shop signs. Signs are written in bold capitals so they catch the eye - MATHS, SCIENCE, ENGLISH. But when you walk inside and talk about what you bought, you use ordinary words: I bought some maths, some science and some English. Only the language keeps its capital inside the shop, because it is a name, not a sign.

A subject at the start of a sentence takes a capital because it is the first word, not because it is a subject: Physics is my hardest subject. Subjects inside titles of books - A Short History of Science - follow the title pattern you will meet in section 16. And in section 20 you will explain each capital's reason, which is where a subject and a language side by side make a good test.

Here is the hard case, and it is worth slowing down for: the same word as a subject and as a course name in one sentence. Jake is taking History 101 this term and already loves history. Read it slowly and look at the two histories. They are the same word, spelt the same way, about the same subject - and yet one stands tall and the other does not. The first is part of the name of one particular course, History 101. You could look it up in the college's list, just as you could look up a place. So it takes a capital. The second is the subject in general - any history, a kind of study. So it stays small. The same test works for school clubs and departments, which are names too: the Science Club, the English Department. The club is one particular club, so its name takes capitals. But 'I joined a science club' uses science as a kind, and stays small. So ask: is this the name of one particular course, club or department? Capital. Is it the subject in general? Small - unless it is a language.

Some subjects are named after a place or a person, and the capital shows through. The word maths is short for mathematics, which comes from an old Greek word for learning. The word history comes from a Greek word for an enquiry. Neither is a name, so both are small. But look at subjects built from names: Indian history, Mughal architecture, Greek myths, Latin. Latin was the language of ancient Rome, so the capital comes from a name. And geometry? It comes from Greek words for measuring the earth - no name inside it, so it stays small. So the capital on a subject is never about how hard or important the subject is. It is always a clue that a name - a language, a people or a place - is hiding inside.

This section covers subjects in sentences. The capitals on timetables, report cards and textbook covers are a house style for labels, and nothing here marks them wrong. Clubs, departments and course titles are names, so they take capitals. Languages as languages were section 11. Titles of books about subjects follow the title pattern in section 16, and headings in general - including which heading style to choose - are a Craft topic (section 22).

1. In a sentence, write subjects small: maths, science, history, geography, art.
2. Keep the capital on subjects that are languages: English, Hindi, Sanskrit, French.
3. Keep the capital on a word made from a name: Indian history, Roman art.
4. Give the title of one particular course a capital: History 101.
5. Give a named club or department capitals: the Science Club.
6. Do not copy timetable capitals into a sentence.
7. Do not mix styles in one sentence: maths and science, both small.
8. A subject that starts a sentence takes a capital because it is first.
9. On a timetable or heading, follow your school's style and keep it the same throughout.

• Priya's best subjects are maths and Sanskrit.
• Our Hindi teacher also teaches geography.
• We learnt about the Mughals in history today.
• Ben finds chemistry harder than French.
• Lily is revising Roman history for a test.
• In Nairobi, Wanjiru studies biology and Swahili.

• Arjun came top in computer science this year.
• The Bengali literature class read Tagore's stories.
• Monday: Maths, English, Art
• Ellie wants to study art and design at college.
• Jake signed up for History 101 at university.
• Mateo studies economics and Portuguese in Lisbon.

Titles of people

A title before a name is part of the name, so it takes a capital. The same word used alone, after the, a, our or my, only says what kind of person - so it stays small.

This is question two of the Name Test: Doctor Rao names one particular person, so the title joins the name and takes a capital - while the doctor only says what kind of person, question three.

A title can also stand in for a name when you speak straight to someone. Then it works like the name, and it usually takes a capital.

Notice that sir and madam stay small in a sentence. They are polite forms of address, not titles that go with a name. Dear Sir at the top of a letter is different - letters have their own pattern, which you will meet in section 18.

And notice Dr, Mr, Mrs and Ms. British and Indian writing usually leaves out the full stop: Dr Rao, Mr Das. American writing usually adds one: Dr. Rao, Mr. Das. Both are standard; choose one and keep it.

Picture a title as a badge. When the badge is pinned onto a person's name - Doctor Rao, Principal Iyer - it becomes part of their name tag, and the whole tag is written tall. When the badge lies on the table by itself, it is only a badge, the kind any doctor or principal could wear, and it stays small.

Titles of government offices - the Prime Minister, a prime minister, the Chief Minister of Kerala - follow the same idea but have extra style choices, so they wait for Craft (section 25). Family words before a name - Aunty Seema, Uncle Ravi - work like titles too, which you met in section 9. And in letters, the title in a greeting - Dear Dr Menon - comes up again in section 18.

Here is the hard case, and it is worth slowing down for: a title word that sits near a name but is not joined to it. Compare these two sentences. We met Principal Iyer at the gate. We met Ms Iyer, our principal, at the gate. In the first, Principal sits directly before the name and works as a title - it is what you would call this one person. So it takes a capital. In the second, principal comes after the name, set off by commas. It no longer stands in front as a title; it explains who Ms Iyer is. So it is small. The name keeps its own title, Ms. The same happens with a longer description: 'the captain of our team, Aisha Khan'. Captain is followed by 'of our team', not by the name, so it describes a kind of person and stays small. So the test is not whether a title word appears near a name. It is whether the title stands directly before the name as part of it - or whether it only describes the person, after the name or with other words in between.

Many English titles are borrowed or shortened from older words. Doctor comes from a Latin word meaning teacher - the first doctors were teachers of learning, long before the word meant someone who treats the sick. Mister and Mistress are old forms of master and mistress, and Mr and Mrs are their short forms. Ms, which does not show whether a woman is married, came into wide use in the twentieth century. Indian English adds its own titles: Shri and Smt. before a name are common on forms and invitations, and they take a capital like any other title. Master looks at these and at honorifics such as ji later in the chapter. So a title is a small word with a long history - and its capital always depends on the same thing: is it standing before a name?

This section covers titles before names and titles used in place of names. Titles of government offices - Prime Minister, President, Chief Minister - have extra style choices and are a Craft topic (section 25). Family words used as titles were section 9. The capital on a title used to speak to someone (Good morning, Doctor) is usual, but some styles keep it small; nothing here keys that as an error. Dr and Dr. are both standard.

1. Give a title before a name a capital: Doctor Rao, Principal Iyer, Captain Mehta.
2. Keep the same word small after the, a, our or my: the doctor, our principal.
3. Always give short titles a capital: Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr.
4. Keep a job word small when it only describes: the cricketer, a nurse.
5. Keep a title word small when it follows the name: Ms Iyer, our principal.
6. Use a capital for a title used in place of a name: Thank you, Doctor.
7. Keep sir and madam small inside a sentence.
8. Choose Dr or Dr. and use the same form throughout.
9. Never capitalise a job just because the person is respected.

• Doctor Rao checked Dev's ears.
• Our principal, Mrs Iyer, read out the results.
• Good morning, Professor Sen.
• The captain, Tom, thanked the team.
• Ask Nurse Kelly where the children's ward is.
• Queen Nzinga ruled lands in what is now Angola.

• Mr Das and Ms Kaur run the school library.
• Every teacher at our school knows Principal Nair.
• Hello, Aunty Rekha! Is Uncle home?
• Dr Hughes is the best vet in town.
• Sergeant Price led the parade past the station.
• Professor Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

Directions and regions

Ask what the word is doing. Telling you which way? Small. Naming one particular place or region? Capital.

This is the Name Test's question two and three side by side: West Bengal names one particular state, so it passes question two and takes a capital - while west in 'the sun sets in the west' only says which way, question three.

Some region words sit between the two, and writers treat them differently.

Notice the words ending in -ern: northern, southern, eastern, western. These are describing words, and in ordinary sentences they stay small: southern Kerala, eastern Nepal. They take a capital only inside a fixed name, such as the Western Ghats or Eastern Europe.

And where both forms appear - north India and North India - choose one and keep it the same throughout your writing.

Picture a compass lying on a table. Its four arrows - north, south, east, west - can point from anywhere, so they are ordinary words, written small. Now picture a map with labels stuck on it: West Bengal, South Africa, the Middle East. Those labels are pinned to one place and never move. A label is a name, and a name stands tall.

Names of more than one word - the Bay of Bengal, the Western Ghats - are the next section's work, and the same rule about main words will apply to regions like the Middle East. Direction words in the names of roads and buildings, such as North Avenue or East Wing, are parts of names too. And some groups of countries have region names that change over time, which Master looks at when capitals change.

Here is the hard case, and it is worth slowing down for: the same direction word twice in one sentence, once as a direction and once as part of a name. Meghalaya lies in the North-East, south of Assam. North-East is the name of a region of India, made up of particular states. You can point to it on a map, and it keeps its capitals. South, in 'south of Assam', only says which way Meghalaya is from Assam. It points. So it stays small. Try another: From South Africa, the plane flew north for eleven hours. South Africa is a country's name - tall. North is the direction of the flight - small. So you cannot decide by the word alone. You must ask what it is doing in this sentence. If you can put 'which way?' in front of it and get an answer, it is a direction. If you can put 'which place?' and it answers with a name you could look up, it is part of a name.

Some place names are directions frozen in time. West Bengal got its name when Bengal was divided in 1947: the western part became an Indian state, and the eastern part became East Pakistan, later Bangladesh. So West in West Bengal was once a direction - and then it became part of a name, and took a capital for good. The same is true all over the world. Norway's name is often traced to 'the way north' in old Norse. Australia comes from a Latin word meaning southern. And the name Japan is often explained as 'origin of the sun', because it lies to the east of China. So directions and names are close cousins. A direction points; once people fix it to one place and keep using it, it can become a name.

This section covers compass directions and regions with direction words in their names. Longer names with small words inside them, like the Bay of Bengal, come in the next section. North India and north India both appear in Indian writing, and so do South India and south India; nothing here keys either as an error - keep one style. Words like the West or the East for cultures are a Craft matter. Street and building names with direction words are names and take capitals.

1. Keep plain directions small: drive north, the sun sets in the west.
2. Keep 'the south of the city' and 'the west coast' small - they describe.
3. Give a capital to direction words inside a name: West Bengal, South Africa.
4. Capitalise every main word of a region: the Middle East, North America.
5. Keep -ern words small when they only describe: southern Kerala.
6. Capitalise -ern words only inside a fixed name: the Western Ghats.
7. Ask 'which way?' or 'which place?' when the same word appears twice.
8. Where both forms appear, like north India and North India, keep one style.
9. Check a map or atlas when you are not sure whether a region is a fixed name.

• We drove north from Chennai for six hours.
• Many tea gardens lie in the North-East.
• Rina's family moved from West Bengal to Goa.
• The wind blew from the east all night.
• Hannah spent a year in North America.
• Dubai is a busy city in the Middle East.

• Our school is in the south of the city.
• The ship sailed east across the Bay of Bengal.
• Meghalaya lies in the North-East, south of Assam.
• Jack walked south along the beach to the pier.
• Emma's grandparents live in Northern Ireland.
• Explorers first reached the South Pole in 1911.

Names with more than one word

In a name of more than one word, the main words stand tall and the small joining words stay small.

Main words are the ones that carry the meaning: nouns and describing words such as Bay, Gateway, Red, Indian. Small words only join: of, and, the, in, on, for.

This is question two of the Name Test, word by word: the whole name points to one particular place, so every main word in it takes a capital - while the small joining words carry no name of their own.

A kind word - fort, lake, bridge, bank, park - becomes part of the name when it belongs to one particular place. Then it takes a capital with the rest.

Notice the word the. In the middle of a sentence, the in front of most names stays small: we visited the Red Fort. At the start of a sentence it takes a capital because it starts the sentence: The Red Fort is in Delhi.

A few names really do include The as part of their official form, like the newspaper The Hindu or the city The Hague. Writers treat those in different ways, and Master looks at them closely.

Picture a long name as a train. The main words are the carriages - big, sturdy and painted with capitals: Bay, Bengal, Gateway, India. The small words are the couplings between them - of, and, the - short links that hold the carriages together but carry no passengers of their own. A the at the front is the platform the train stands at, not part of the train.

The same main-words pattern returns in the next section for titles of books, films and songs: The Jungle Book, Taare Zameen Par. Titles add a rule of their own - the first word always takes a capital - and some styles treat longer small words differently, which Craft looks at. Names with hyphens in them are chapter 19's work.

Here is the hard case, and it is worth slowing down for: deciding whether a kind word belongs to the name or only describes it. We walked along Marine Drive to the sea. We walked along the drive to the sea. In the first, Marine Drive is the name of one particular road in Mumbai, so both words take capitals. In the second, drive is any drive, so it stays small. Now try: the Gateway of India is a monument in Mumbai. Gateway and India are main words of the name. Monument is not part of the name - it only says what kind of thing the Gateway is - so it stays small. The trouble comes when a kind word sits right after a name without being part of it. The Ganga is a long river. Here river is outside the name; the name is the Ganga. So river stays small. The test is to ask: would the people who named this place, or the sign at its entrance, include this word? Marine Drive, the Red Fort, Lake Victoria, the State Bank of India - yes. A long river, an old monument, a big park - no. When you are unsure, check a map, a sign or an official website.

Some of India's best-known long names have short histories. The Gateway of India in Mumbai was built in the early twentieth century to mark a royal visit, and it faces the Arabian Sea. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are two groups of islands, joined into one name by a small word - and, of course, the and stays small. Long names are not only for places. Organisations have them too: the State Bank of India, the Indian Space Research Organisation, the Reserve Bank of India. Because these names are so long, people often shorten them to their first letters - SBI, ISRO, RBI - and short forms like these, all in capitals, are a Craft topic. So a long name is really a small sentence of its own, with main words standing tall and small words keeping it together.

This section covers names of places, buildings, landmarks and organisations. Titles of books, films and songs have their own pattern, which comes next. Names that include The as their own part, such as The Hindu or The Hague, are treated in different ways by different styles; Master section 34 looks at them. Short forms such as ISRO and SBI are Craft section 28. Hyphenated names are chapter 19. When a name's own sign or website uses a form, follow it.

1. Give every main word of a name a capital: the Bay of Bengal, Indian Railways.
2. Keep small joining words inside a name small: of, and, the, in, on, for.
3. Keep a the in front of a name small in the middle of a sentence.
4. Capitalise that the at the start of a sentence, because it starts the sentence.
5. Capitalise a kind word when it is part of the name: the Red Fort, Lake Victoria.
6. Keep a kind word small when it is not part of the name: a long river, an old fort.
7. After a small word, keep going: the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
8. Check a sign, map or official website when you are unsure whether a word is part of the name.

• Fishing boats set out into the Bay of Bengal.
• We took photos at the Gateway of India.
• Indian Railways runs thousands of trains every day.
• Megan and Joe climbed Ben Nevis last summer.
• The Tower of London stands beside the River Thames.
• Tourists visit Lake Titicaca in Peru and Bolivia.

• The Western Ghats run along India's west coast.
• My cousin works at the State Bank of India.
• Mount Abu is a hill station in Rajasthan.
• We walked through Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace.
• Sam crossed the Golden Gate Bridge on a bike.
• The Great Wall of China is thousands of kilometres long.

Titles of books, films and songs

A title is the name of one particular book, film or song. So it takes capitals - but only on its main words.

So: The Jungle Book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Old Man and the Sea.

This is question two of the Name Test: a title names one particular work, so it stands tall - on its first word and its main words.

Here is the pattern run on three titles, word by word.

Notice that the same word can be tall in one place and small in another. The in The Old Man is the first word, so it is a capital; the in and the Sea is inside the title, so it is small.

And a title keeps its capitals wherever it sits in your own sentence: Our class is reading The Jungle Book. The words around it follow the ordinary rules - class is a kind of thing, so it stays small.

Picture a title as a row of flagpoles on a stage. The first pole always carries a flag, whatever word stands under it. After that, every main word - a noun, a verb, a describing word, a pronoun - raises its flag. The little joining words, like of, the and and, are the ropes strung between the poles: they hold the title together, but they carry no flag of their own.

The same pattern works for chapter titles, poems, plays, television shows, magazines, games and the titles of your own stories and projects. In print, the title of a whole book or film is often set in italics, and a song, poem or chapter title often goes in quotation marks - chapter 17 covers those marks. This section is only about which letters stand tall.

Here is the hard case, and it is worth sitting with: short words that are main words. Many learners use a shortcut: 'long words get capitals, short words stay small.' Test it on one title. Life Is a Game Is has two letters. A has one. By the shortcut, both would be small. But the pattern does not ask how long a word is; it asks what job it does. Is is a verb - it says what life does - so it is a main word and takes a capital. A only points to the noun Game, so it stays small. Now try another. The Day It Rained on the Fair It has two letters, on has two letters. It is a pronoun standing for a noun, so it is a main word: capital. On only shows where, so it is a joining word: small. So the test is not 'short or long?' It is 'does this word do a main job - name, act, describe, stand for something - or does it only join and point?' Main jobs stand tall; joining jobs stay small. The one exception is the first word, which is always tall whatever its job. Style guides differ on some longer joining words, such as with and from, and Craft looks at that. The little ones in the list stay small in every title-case style.

Titles have not always looked like this. Old printed books often had very long titles that ran across the whole first page, sometimes with a capital on almost every noun, because many English printers of the time capitalised nouns freely. A book's title could be a full paragraph describing what was inside. As titles grew shorter, printers and publishers settled on patterns for which words stand tall. Today there are two main ones. Title case - the pattern in this section - capitalises the main words. Sentence case capitalises only the first word and any names, as in a sentence. Many newspapers and some reference lists use sentence case for headlines and article titles. Both are standard. Craft shows you how to choose between them and keep one style throughout.

This section teaches one pattern: title case with the little joining words kept small. It is the pattern most school books and book covers use. Sentence case - The jungle book, with only the first word and names tall - is also a standard house style, used by many newspapers and reference lists; Craft Section 21 teaches it. Style guides also differ on longer joining words such as with, from and about, so no item in this section tests those. A title in another language written in English letters, such as Taare Zameen Par, keeps the capitals the work itself uses. Italics and quotation marks for titles are chapter 17's topic.

1. Treat a title as a name: it takes capitals.
2. Give the first word a capital, even if it is The, A or An.
3. Give every main word a capital: nouns, verbs, describing words and pronouns.
4. Keep a, an, the, and, but, or, of, in, on, at, to and for small inside the title.
5. Decide by the word's job, not its length: Is and It stand tall.
6. Keep the title's capitals when it sits in the middle of your sentence.
7. Copy a title in another language exactly as the book or film writes it.
8. Check your title against the real cover, poster or listing.
9. Use one pattern for every title in a list or bibliography.

• Our class is reading The Jungle Book.
• Have you seen Taare Zameen Par?
• Kavya sang Jana Gana Mana at the assembly.
• Emily finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in a week.
• Jack watched The Lion King twice.
• In Lagos, Tunde borrowed Things Fall Apart from the library.

• Ravi loves the stories in Malgudi Days.
• Our school play was called A Walk in the Western Ghats.
• Arjun wrote a poem called Life Is a Game.
• Grandad reads Alice's Adventures in Wonderland aloud.
• Sophie's story is called The Day It Rained on the Fair.
• In Nairobi, Wanjiru read The Old Man and the Sea.

Capitals in speech

Inside speech, capitals follow the speaker's sentences.

This is question one of the Name Test, asked inside the marks: does this word begin the speaker's sentence? If it does, it stands tall. Question two still works too - names and I keep their capitals.

Where the commas and quotation marks go is chapter 17's topic. This section is about the letters.

Here is the same speaker in four lines, with every capital explained.

Notice the last row. A question mark or exclamation mark usually ends a sentence, so learners reach for a capital after it. But in "Can we play?" asked Kabir, the words asked Kabir belong to the same sentence as the question. The mark ends Kabir's words; it does not end the writer's sentence. So asked stays small.

And notice what stays the same in every row: Kabir is a name, so he stands tall wherever he appears.

Picture a speaker holding a lantern. Each time they begin a new sentence, they lift the lantern high - that is the capital. When the narrator steps in with 'said Ravi', the speaker only lowers the lantern for a moment; if they carry on the same sentence, they do not lift it again. And when the speaker stops with a question, the narrator's 'asked Meera' walks on in the same light, so it stays small.

The same capital moves hold when the speaker says several sentences in a row: each new sentence inside the marks starts with its own capital. "Wait. It's raining. Take an umbrella." And when the narration carries on after the speech has ended the writer's sentence, the next sentence of narration starts with a capital as usual. Chapter 17 covers where the commas and closing marks go.

Here is the hard case, and it is worth sitting with: split speech, and whether the second part is a new sentence. "When the rain stops," said Kabir, "we can play." "The rain has stopped," said Kabir. "We can play." The reporting words are the same, and the second part is the same three words. Yet one has we and the other has We. The test is to take the reporting words out and read what the speaker said. First line: 'When the rain stops, we can play.' That is one sentence. 'When the rain stops' cannot stand alone - it is waiting for the rest. So after said Kabir the speaker simply carries on, and we stays small. Second line: 'The rain has stopped. We can play.' Those are two complete sentences. The first is finished before said Kabir, so the narrator's words end with a full stop, and the speaker lifts a new capital: We. So the capital does not depend on the quotation mark, on the reporting words, or on the word itself. It depends on one question: has the speaker begun a new sentence? Take out 'said Kabir' and listen. One sentence, small letter. Two sentences, capital.

Some writers leave quotation marks out of speech altogether. In some novels, speech is shown only by a new line, a dash or the words 'he said' and 'she said', with no marks at all. Readers still follow who is talking - and one of the main things they rely on is the capital letter. A capital shows where each speaker's sentence begins, even when there are no marks around it. That tells you how much work the capital does in ordinary speech too. The marks show which words were spoken. The capital shows where the speaker's sentence starts. Chapter 17 looks at the marks; the capitals are yours to place every time someone speaks.

This section covers only the capitals in speech. Where the commas, full stops, question marks and quotation marks go is chapter 17 - point back there for the marks. A quotation inside your own sentence that is not speech - a phrase you quote in an essay, such as calling something "a quiet revolution" - follows a different rule about capitals, and Craft Section 24 covers it. Every example here uses double quotation marks; single marks are also standard, and the capitals do not change.

1. Give the first word a speaker says a capital, wherever the speech sits.
2. If the reporting words come first, still start the speech with a capital: Mum said, "Come inside."
3. For split speech, take out the reporting words and listen.
4. If it is one sentence, carry on with a small letter.
5. If the speaker starts a new sentence, start it with a capital.
6. After a question or exclamation mark, keep asked, said or shouted small.
7. Keep capitals on names and on I inside the speech.
8. Keep kind words small inside speech, just as outside it.
9. Never let the quotation mark alone decide a capital.

• Nani said, "Dinner is ready."
• "Come quickly," said Ravi, "the bus is here."
• "Are you coming?" asked Meera.
• "The train is late," said Oliver. "We will wait here."
• Emily shouted, "Look, Dad, I can swim!"
• "Can we visit Cairo in March?" asked Layla.

• "When the rain stops," said Kabir, "we can play cricket."
• "Happy Diwali!" called our neighbour.
• Ammi said, "We will visit Hyderabad for Eid."
• "Is the library open?" asked Mr Hughes. "I need a book."
• "My favourite teacher," said Chloe, "is Mrs Patel."
• "The market opens at six," said Ana in Lima.

Letters, emails and messages

A letter has three parts, and each follows the Name Test.

In the greeting, a title such as Sir, Madam or Principal stands in for the reader's name, so it takes a capital, just as Doctor does in Good morning, Doctor. Small joining words stay small: Dear Sir or Madam.

This is the Name Test at the top and bottom of a letter: the first word is a beginning, and names and titles used as names stand tall - everything else stays small.

Here is a short letter with every capital explained.

Notice two things. First, the body starts on a new line after the greeting, and its first word takes a capital because it begins a sentence - Thank you. Second, nothing in the letter takes a capital for being polite or important. Sincerely, regards, trip and project all stay small.

Messages and emails to friends follow the same rules for I, names, days and months. In a very casual text some people write everything small, and among family that is common; in a message to a teacher, an office or anyone you do not know well, keep the capitals.

Picture a letter as a small house. The greeting is the front door, with a nameplate: the first word and the name on the plate stand tall. The closing is the back door, and it has only one handle at the top - its first word. Everything inside the house, the body, is furnished by the ordinary rules: a tall first word in each sentence, a tall I, and tall names on the family photos.

The same rules hold in a postcard, a thank-you card, a school application and an email. An address follows the Name Test as well: the house or street name, the area, the city and the postcode's letters stand tall - 14 Lake Road, Kolkata. The subject line of an email is a kind of heading, and Craft shows the two styles for headings.

Here is the hard case, and it is worth sitting with: a title word that is sometimes tall and sometimes small in the same letter. Dear Principal, I am writing to thank the principal and the teachers for the science fair. Principal has a capital in the greeting and a small letter in the body. Why? In the greeting, Principal stands in for the reader's name. You could put a name there - Dear Mrs Iyer - and the line would do the same job. A word used as a name takes a capital, just as Mum does in 'Ask Mum' and Doctor does in 'Good morning, Doctor.' In the body, 'the principal' only says what kind of person - the one who runs the school. The word the in front of it is the clue: you would never write 'the Mrs Iyer'. So it stays small, like the teachers. The same happens with Sir and Madam. Dear Sir or Madam uses them as names for a reader you do not know. 'Please tell the sir at the desk' - which Indian English often says in speech - uses sir as a kind of person, so in writing it would be small. So the test is the Name Test's question two: in this line, is the word standing in for a name, or describing a kind of person?

Letter closings used to be much longer. Old formal letters often ended with a whole sentence of politeness, something like 'I remain, Sir, your most humble and obedient servant.' Over time, writers trimmed these down to a few words - Yours faithfully, Yours sincerely, Yours truly - and in emails today to even shorter ones: Best wishes, Kind regards, Thanks. Notice what happened to the capitals as the closings shrank. The long sentence started with one capital, and so does the short closing that grew out of it. Yours sincerely is a tiny leftover of a sentence, which is why only its first word stands tall.

This section treats only the capitals in letters and messages. Mrs and Mrs., Mr and Mr., Dr and Dr. are all standard - British and Indian writing often leave out the full stop and American writing often keeps it - so no item here keys either form wrong. Respected Sir and Respected Madam are standard openings in many Indian school letters. Which closing matches which greeting is a letter-format question, not a capitals one. Email subject lines are headings, and Craft Section 22 covers heading styles. Mum or mum in a casual family text is a writer's choice.

1. Start the greeting with a capital: Dear, Hi, Hello, Respected.
2. Give a capital to every name and to a title before a name: Dear Mrs Kapoor.
3. Give a capital to a title used as a name in the greeting: Dear Principal, Dear Sir or Madam.
4. Keep small joining words small: Sir or Madam.
5. Start the body with a capital on a new line.
6. In the body, keep I, names, days and months tall and kind words small.
7. Give the closing one capital, on its first word: Yours sincerely, Best wishes.
8. Sign with your name in capitals and small letters: Aditi Rao.
9. In messages to a teacher or an office, keep every capital.

• Dear Mrs Kapoor,
• Respected Sir, I am writing about our class trip to Mysuru.
• Yours sincerely, Anil Mehta
• Best wishes, Tom
• Hi Grace, are you free on Saturday?
• Hello everyone, the Lagos trip is on Friday.

• Dear Principal,
• Yours faithfully, Fatima Sheikh
• Thanks, Amma! I reached Chennai safely.
• With love from Grandma and Grandpa
• Dear Sir or Madam,
• Kind regards, Sofia Rossi

Brand names

A brand is the name of one particular company or product. So it takes capitals - in the form its owner gives it.

This is question two of the Name Test: a brand names one particular company or product, so it stands tall - in the form its owner gives it. The kind word beside it - butter, truck, app, case - goes through question three and stays small.

Here is the Name Test run on brands and the words around them.

Notice that a brand can sit anywhere in a sentence and keep its shape. eBay is written eBay in the middle of a sentence and in a list.

The one awkward spot is the start of a sentence. A sentence starts with a capital, but the brand starts small. Careful writers usually solve it by recasting - moving the brand away from the start:

Picture each brand name as a signed badge its owner has made. You may pin the badge anywhere in your sentence, but you may not repaint it: the small i and tall P of iPhone stay exactly as they were made. The plain kind word beside it - butter, truck, phone - is not a badge at all; it is an ordinary label, so it stays small.

The same respect for the owner's form applies to people and organisations. A writer's own name is written as the writer writes it - some authors, such as bell hooks, chose small letters for their names. Some brand names also became ordinary words over time and lost their capitals; Craft looks at words that lost their capital, and at short forms such as ISRO and UNESCO.

Here is the hard case, and it is worth sitting with: a sentence that wants to start with iPhone. iPhone cameras have improved. Two rules pull in different directions. The first says every sentence starts with a capital letter. The second says a brand is written in its owner's form, with a small i. If you obey only the first, you get IPhone - but that is not the brand's name. If you obey only the second, you get a sentence that starts small, which many readers will stop and puzzle over. Writers, editors and style guides do not all settle this the same way. But there is one move that keeps both rules at once: recast the sentence so the brand is not the first word. The iPhone camera has improved. Cameras on the iPhone have improved. Now the sentence starts with a capital T or a capital C, and the brand keeps its small i. Nothing is broken. The same move works for eBay, and for any name that starts small. So when a small-letter name lands at the start of a sentence, do not repaint the name and do not leave the sentence small: move the name.

Brand names with a small letter first or a capital in the middle are newer than you might think. For most of the history of printing, names followed the ordinary pattern: one capital at the start. In recent decades, many technology companies chose unusual shapes to make their names stand out - a small letter first, as in iPhone and eBay, or a capital in the middle, as in YouTube, WhatsApp and PlayStation. A capital in the middle of a word is sometimes called camel case, because the tall letter sticks up like a camel's hump. The Name Test does not change for them. It still says a name stands tall. It only reminds you that the owner decides exactly which letters stand tall.

This section is about ordinary text, not logos. Many brands use all capitals or all small letters in their logos, but write their names in ordinary sentences with a normal capital; copy the form a company uses in its own sentences. Some brands are written differently by different publishers - for example, all capitals or only a first capital - and no item here tests those. Spelling, hyphens and apostrophes in brand names are not this section's topic. A brand that became an ordinary word is Craft Section 27's.

1. Treat a brand as a name: it takes capitals.
2. Copy the owner's form exactly: iPhone, eBay, YouTube, WhatsApp.
3. Never 'correct' a brand into the ordinary pattern: not Iphone, not Ebay.
4. Give an ordinary brand its capital: Amul, Tata, Flipkart.
5. Keep the kind word beside a brand small: Amul butter, a Tata truck.
6. Check a brand's form in the company's own sentences, not its logo.
7. If a sentence would start with a small-letter brand, recast it.
8. Copy a person's or organisation's own name form the same way.
9. Use one form for a brand everywhere in a piece of writing.

• We buy Amul butter every week.
• My uncle drives a Tata truck.
• Riya ordered a lamp on Flipkart.
• Dad keeps his photos on his iPhone.
• Harry sold an old bike on eBay.
• In Osaka, Kenji drives a Toyota van.

• Aarav watched a cricket match on YouTube.
• Nani sends voice notes on WhatsApp.
• We paid for the tickets with Paytm.
• The iPhone in the shop window was the newest model.
• Olivia brought a bar of Cadbury chocolate.
• Min-jun bought a Samsung tablet in Seoul.

Explain your evidence

To explain a capital, name its reason. Every capital and small letter in this band has one of these reasons.

This is the whole Name Test at work: beginning, name, or kind? Each row names which question decides the letter.

Here are reasons that count as evidence, and reasons that do not.

Notice what the good reasons share. Each names a job the word is doing, and someone else can check it: is Hindi a language? Is Rao a name after Doctor? Does north name a region, or only a direction?

Now the choices. A timetable or a course heading may write Maths or Science; a letter may write Mrs Kapoor or Mrs. Kapoor. These are house styles. Evidence includes saying so: 'both are standard; this one follows a timetable style'. A fix needs a reason too - and 'it is a style I do not use' is not a reason to call it wrong.

Picture every capital carrying a small ticket, like luggage at an airport. The ticket says where it came from: beginning, name, or title before a name. A small letter carries a ticket too: kind of thing, or joining word. When you check a sentence, you are the officer reading tickets. A capital with no ticket - Maths in a sentence, Yours Sincerely - gets taken off.

The same habit of giving reasons carries into Craft, where more capitals become choices: title case or sentence case, a capital after a colon, the Prime Minister or the prime minister. There, the evidence often includes naming the style you are following and keeping it the same throughout a piece of writing. A careful writer can then say both what the rule is and which style they chose.

Here is a pair where two reasons compete, and only the meaning decides. We spent the holidays in South India. We drove to the south of the city. Someone might say: 'South is a direction, so it is always small.' Someone else might say: 'South is part of a place, so it is always a capital.' Each reason names a job, so each sounds like evidence. What decides? The meaning. In the first sentence, South India names a region - one particular part of the country that people know and look up by that name. It passes question two of the Name Test, so both words stand tall. In the second, the south of the city only says which part of a place, in the same way that the top of a hill or the edge of a field would. It describes a direction inside something else, so it stays small. So evidence is not only naming a reason; it is checking that the reason fits this word in this sentence. The same test sorts the North-East (a named region of India) from drove north, and Doctor Rao from the doctor. When you are unsure whether a region has a name, look it up. If people write it with capitals as a name, it is a name.

Some of the capitals you have justified in Practice would look different in other languages. In French, the names of languages are written small: le français, l'anglais. In English they stand tall: French, English. In German, every noun takes a capital, so a German writer capitalises words that English keeps small, such as the words for school or dog. And in Hindi written in Devanagari there are no capital letters at all. So a capital is not a fact about the world. It is a rule of one writing system - and in English, the rule is the Name Test. That is exactly why reasons matter: the evidence for an English capital is always 'beginning' or 'name'.

This section brings together the Practice rules and does not add new ones. A few capitals are house-style choices and are never marked wrong here: a school subject written with a capital on a timetable or a course heading, Mrs or Mrs., and a title word such as Maths in a heading. Title case and sentence case, capitals after a colon, offices such as the Prime Minister, historic events and short forms are Craft's topics. Languages other than English are described, not judged.

1. For every capital, name its reason: beginning, name, or title before a name.
2. For every tempting small letter, name its reason too: a kind of thing or a joining word.
3. Check the reason fits this word in this sentence, not just words like it.
4. Give languages and nationalities capitals; keep other subjects small in sentences.
5. Capitalise a title before a name; keep it small with no name after it.
6. Capitalise a named region; keep a direction small.
7. Leave a brand's or person's own form alone.
8. Name a house-style choice as a choice, not an error.
9. When you fix a capital, say why in words someone else can check.

• Meera studies Hindi, maths and French.
• Doctor Rao said the doctor on duty would see us.
• We drove north to see the tea gardens of the North-East.
• "Look," said Emma, "the ferry to the Isle of Wight is here."
• Jack sent a YouTube link to Mrs Evans.
• Amina writes letters in Swahili and English from Nairobi.

• Our Tamil teacher, Mrs Iyer, grew up in South India.
• Dadi sings Vande Mataram in Bengali.
• The Gateway of India faces the Arabian Sea.
• "Is it far?" asked Uncle Tom. "We're nearly at Loch Ness."
• With best wishes, Grace
• Lucas speaks Portuguese and watches football on YouTube.

Writing with intent · ages 12–16

Title case or sentence case

Two house styles, one title.

In title case the small joining words stay small unless they come first: a, an, the; and, but, or; and short prepositions such as of, in, on, at, to and for.

Both styles leave names alone. This is the Name Test at work: a name - one particular place, person or work - keeps its capital in either style; the style decides only the ordinary words.

Title case sounds simple until you meet a longer small word. Guides agree on the shortest ones and differ on the rest.

That last row catches many writers. Short does not mean small. Things Fall Apart and Life Is a Game keep Is and Fall tall because they are verbs. Only the joining words and short prepositions shrink.

Sentence case has no such list to learn. Write the title as if it were a sentence: first word tall, names tall, everything else small. That is why many websites and reference lists prefer it - it is quicker to apply and harder to get wrong.

Picture two ways of dressing the same shelf. In title case, every main book stands upright and only the thin bookends - a, the, and, of - lie flat. In sentence case, the books lie flat on their sides and only the first book and the named ones stand up. Either shelf looks tidy. A shelf where some rows stand and some lie flat looks as if someone gave up halfway.

A title inside a title keeps its own capitals. If an essay in sentence case is called Themes in The God of Small Things, the novel's own title stays in title case, because it is the name of one particular book. Styles differ on whether reference lists convert a book's title too: APA reference lists put book and article titles into sentence case, while many other styles keep a book's title as published. Follow the style your list uses.

Here is the case that takes judgement: the four-letter preposition. Travelling with a Tiffin Box Travelling With a Tiffin Box Both are title case. The first follows guides such as Chicago style, which keeps every preposition small, however long. The second follows guides such as APA style, which gives a capital to every word of four letters or more - so With stands up. Neither is a mistake. Each is a rule inside a house style. So which do you follow? The one your school, publisher or teacher names. If nobody names one, pick either and apply it the same way to every title in the list. A reader will not mind which rule you chose; a reader will notice if Travelling with a Tiffin Box sits above Walking With the Wind. The same judgement applies to words like from, about and between. Test each one: is it a joining word or a preposition, and does my chosen guide lower it at this length? If you are unsure, sentence case removes the question altogether - which is one reason many websites and teachers prefer it. What never changes is the short list: a, an, the, and, but, or, and the short prepositions of, in, on, at, to and for stay small in the middle of a title in every major title-case style.

Open a Wikipedia article and look at its headings: Early life, Career, Personal life. Only the first word of each has a capital. That is not carelessness - Wikipedia's own style rules ask for sentence case in every article title and heading, from the article on the Taj Mahal to the one on Chinua Achebe. Now pick up a printed novel. The cover and the title page almost always use title case: The God of Small Things, A Suitable Boy, Weep Not, Child. The same language, two of the most read kinds of text in the world, two different styles - and both writers and readers treat each as perfectly normal. That is the clearest proof that capitals in titles are a house choice, not a law. The law, if there is one, is to keep your choice once you have made it.

Which words title case lowers is not fixed: guides agree on articles, short joining words and short prepositions, and differ on prepositions of four letters or more; items here key only the words every major guide lowers, and only under a stem that names title case. A title word after a colon, and hyphenated words in titles, are handled in other sections (colons in the next but one; hyphens in chapter 19). Italics for titles belong to chapter 17's marks and are not shown. Real titles here are given as their publishers print them; invented titles are marked as such in the notes.

1. Find out which style your school, teacher or publisher uses before you start.
2. If nobody names one, choose title case or sentence case and write it down.
3. In title case, capitalise the first word and every main word, including short verbs like is and be.
4. Keep a, an, the, and, but, or and short prepositions small mid-title.
5. In sentence case, capitalise only the first word and names.
6. Keep every name tall in either style.
7. Read the whole list top to bottom once, checking only for style changes.
8. Keep a published title as its owner prints it unless your reference style converts it.

• Our reading list begins with The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.
• In an APA reference list, Kalam's autobiography appears as Wings of fire.
• Meera's sentence-case project is called Rain and rivers of the Western Ghats.
• Emma's shelf holds Of Mice and Men beside Pride and Prejudice.
• Oliver's news site printed the headline Council opens new library on Friday.
• In Nairobi, Wanjiru added Weep Not, Child by Ngugi wa Thiong'o to the list.

• Aditi's sentence-case heading, Themes in The God of Small Things, keeps the novel's own capitals.
• Kabir's school magazine prints Five Ways to Save Water at Home in title case.
• Priya's APA reference list gives Seth's novel as A suitable boy.
• Grace's blog posts use sentence case, such as How I learnt to bake bread.
• Jack's title-case poster reads A Night at the Museum of London.
• In Tokyo, Haruto keeps sentence case for every heading, even Visiting the Kyoto temples.

Headings, captions and subject lines

Four places a heading hides, and one rule for all of them.

Choose a column and stay in it. Captions that are full sentences are the one exception: they take a capital only at the start and on names, whatever the headings use.

In every column the Name Test still runs: Hampi, Friday and Pune are names, so they keep their capitals in every heading, caption and subject line.

Most heading slips happen when a document grows. A new section is added, a slide is copied from another deck, a caption is pasted from a website. Each brings its own style.

Some organisations do set different heading levels in different styles on purpose - main headings in title case, smaller sub-headings in sentence case. That is a house style too, and it is fine, as long as every heading at the same level follows the same rule. What a reader notices is a change without a reason.

The fastest check is a list. Copy every heading into one column and read down it. A mixed style jumps out when the headings stand next to each other, even when it hid between paragraphs.

Think of a document's headings as the uniforms of a school team. Title case and sentence case are two different kits, and either looks smart. But a team where some players wear one kit and some wear the other looks like two teams on one pitch. The subject line of the email is the player who walks out first - dressed in the same kit as the rest.

Email subject lines have no single rule in English, but many organisations ask for sentence case, because a subject line reads like a short sentence: Science fair moved to Friday. Whatever your organisation uses, a subject line that matches the attached document's headings looks deliberate. And a subject line in all capital letters reads as shouting to most readers - Master looks at why.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a caption. Students plant neem saplings in Pune. Neem saplings, Pune, July 2025 The first caption is a full sentence, so it is capitalised like any sentence: Students at the start, Pune because it is a name, and nothing else. Most style guides also give it a full stop, because it is a sentence. The second is a label, not a sentence - a list of facts. It takes a capital at the start and on names and months, and many guides leave the full stop off. So the question for a caption is not 'title case or sentence case?' but 'is this a sentence or a label?' If it is a sentence, write it as one. If it is a label, treat it like a heading and follow the document's heading style. The same judgement applies to slide titles. A slide titled Rainfall Has Fallen by a Third Since 2015 is a whole claim - a sentence in disguise. Many presentation guides now advise writing such claims in sentence case, like a sentence: Rainfall has fallen by a third since 2015. A slide titled Rainfall Data is a label, and can follow the deck's heading style. What never changes is the Name Test: in a sentence, a label, a heading or a subject line, Pune, July and neem keep exactly the capitals the test gives them - tall for the names, small for the tree.

Some newspapers do not use the same style for headlines and for the headings inside a story. A paper might print a front-page headline in title case, a heading inside the article in sentence case, and its photo captions as ordinary sentences. It looks inconsistent - until you realise each level follows its own rule, every time. That is the secret of good heading style. Readers do not need every line on a page to look the same. They need every line of the same kind to look the same. A reader who sees three captions written three different ways notices; a reader who sees every caption written as a sentence and every headline in title case feels, without thinking about it, that someone was in charge. So when you plan a document, decide your rule for each kind of line - main heading, sub-heading, caption, slide title, subject line - and then keep each rule.

There is no single English rule for email subject lines or captions; items here never key title case or sentence case wrong unless the stem names the document's style. Full stops at the end of captions vary by house style and are not keyed. Some house styles set heading levels differently on purpose; items here compare headings at the same level only. Subject lines in all capitals are treated as a matter of tone in the Master band. Colons in headings are covered in the next section.

1. Before writing, decide the capital style for each kind of line: headings, sub-headings, captions, slide titles.
2. Use that style at every heading of the same level.
3. Give the first word of every heading, caption and subject line a capital.
4. Keep every name tall in every style.
5. Write a caption that is a full sentence exactly like a sentence.
6. Check every heading you paste in from another document.
7. Copy all headings into one list and read down it for any change.
8. Match the email subject line to the style of the document it sends.

• Ishaan's email subject line read Science fair on Friday.
• The caption under the photo says Students plant neem saplings in Pune.
• Riya's Hampi project keeps sentence case for every heading, from Getting there to Where to stay.
• Sophie's newsletter sets each heading in title case, such as Dates for Your Diary.
• A label caption in Tom's report reads Rainfall in Cardiff, June 2025.
• Amara's subject line, Visa documents for the Lagos office, is in sentence case.

• The school website's headings run Admissions, Fee structure and Bus routes.
• Farhan's caption reads The Charminar at dusk, seen from Laad Bazaar.
• In the minutes, the heading Action points for the Diwali mela stays in sentence case.
• Lucy's subject line, Minutes of the Year 9 Parents' Meeting, uses title case.
• George's club website greets visitors with the heading Join Our Coding Club.
• Mateo's slide title, Water use in Lima homes, sits above a bar chart.

A capital after a colon?

What follows the colon decides the capital.

For a full sentence, APA and AP styles use a capital; Chicago style and most British styles use lower case. Choose one and keep it through the whole piece.

The Name Test does the rest: after any colon, ask whether the word is a name or I - if it is, it stands tall in every style.

The hardest part is deciding whether a full sentence follows the colon at all.

To test, cover everything before the colon. Could the words after it stand alone as a sentence, with a subject and a verb? If they could not, the capital question does not arise: keep them small. If they could, your style decides.

A command counts as a full sentence too - Read every day has an understood subject, you. So a style that capitalises full sentences after a colon writes The lesson is simple: Read every day.

Think of a colon as a doorway inside one house, not the front door of a new one. A full stop sends you out of the house; the next sentence is a new house with its own tall front door. A colon only opens an inner door. Some house styles hang a tall sign on inner doors that lead to a whole room - a full sentence - and some do not. But a cupboard - a list or a phrase - never gets a tall sign, and a person's name always keeps its own.

In titles and headings, the word after a colon starts a subtitle, and a subtitle's first word takes a capital in both title case and sentence case: Saving Sparrows: A Guide for Delhi Schools, or, in sentence case, Saving sparrows: A guide for Delhi schools. APA's sentence-case reference lists follow the same rule, capitalising the first word of the title and of the subtitle.

Here is the case that takes judgement: more than one sentence after the colon. The principal's message had two parts: exams begin on Monday. Results follow in May. The principal's message had two parts: Exams begin on Monday. Results follow in May. Chicago style, which normally keeps a single sentence after a colon small, changes its rule here. When two or more full sentences follow the colon, it gives the first one a capital, because the colon now introduces a small paragraph rather than finishing one sentence. So the second version is Chicago style too - and, of course, APA and AP style, which use a capital before any full sentence. Written with a small exams, the first version looks as if the colon's sentence ends at Monday and a new one starts at Results. The reader stumbles. That is why the capital helps here even in styles that usually avoid it. The same judgement applies to a quotation or a question after a colon. A quoted full sentence keeps its own capital - The notice gave one order: "Keep off the grass." - because the capital belongs to the quotation, not to the colon. The next section looks at quotations in detail. When you are unsure, ask what the reader needs: a capital that marks the start of a new sentence, or a small letter that shows the thought is still going on? Then check that your choice matches your style, and keep it.

American and British readers can look at the same colon and each think the other is wrong. An American newspaper editor following AP style writes: The verdict was in: The team had qualified. A British editor following a typical British house style writes: The verdict was in: the team had qualified. Each may feel a flicker of irritation reading the other's version - and each is following a published, standard style. This is one of the few places where a single capital letter can tell you which side of the Atlantic a writer learned their English, or at least which style sheet their publisher follows. Indian writers meet both: school textbooks, newspapers and exam papers do not all agree. That is not a problem to solve but a choice to make - and then to keep for the whole piece.

Style guides differ on a capital before a single full sentence after a colon; items here key it only when the stem names the style (APA, AP, Chicago or a named house style), and never key either form wrong on its own. Lists, phrases and single words after a colon are lower case in every major style, and names and I keep their capitals, so those are keyed. Chicago's capital before two or more sentences is stated as that guide's documented rule. Quotations after a colon are treated in the next section. Colons themselves - when to use one - belong to the punctuation chapters.

1. Before writing, find out whether your style capitalises a full sentence after a colon.
2. Cover the words before the colon and ask whether the rest could stand alone as a sentence.
3. Keep a list, a phrase or a single ordinary word small after a colon.
4. Keep names and I tall after a colon, in every style.
5. Before a full sentence, follow your style: APA and AP capital, Chicago and most British styles small.
6. Use a capital when two or more full sentences follow the colon.
7. Give a subtitle's first word a capital in any title.
8. Check every colon in the piece against the same rule before you hand it in.

• Nani had one rule for the kitchen: nobody eats before the guests.
• The notice was clear: Buses leave at seven sharp.
• Pack three things for the trek: water, a torch and a raincoat.
• Ella found the problem: Jaipur was spelt wrongly on every page.
• Ben's message began with the good news: I passed the driving test.
• Kenji's recipe ends with a warning: handles get very hot.

• Priya's project is titled Saving Sparrows: A Guide for Delhi Schools.
• The principal's message had two parts: Exams begin on Monday. Results follow in May.
• Only one team reached the final: Chennai.
• Olivia's report follows APA style: When a full sentence follows a colon, it starts with a capital.
• Harry's British editor made one change: after colons, sentences now start small.
• In Lima, Sofia listed the ingredients: potatoes, lime and chilli.

Quotations inside your sentence

Two ways a quotation enters your sentence, and two answers for its first letter.

The marks themselves - where they go, and the comma before them - are chapter 17's work. Here the only question is the first letter.

The Name Test still has the last word: inside any quotation, a name or I keeps its capital, wherever the quotation sits.

Most mistakes come from treating every quotation the same way. Look at what the quoted words are doing in your sentence.

A quick test: take the quotation marks away and read your sentence. If the quoted words would start with a capital in an ordinary sentence - because they begin a sentence of their own, or begin with a name - keep it. If they would not, start small.

The one change you are allowed to make inside a quotation is this first letter. Every other word, capital and comma stays exactly as the source wrote it.

Think of a quotation as a guest arriving at your sentence. A full quoted sentence is a guest who walks in through the front door you open for them - Our principal said - and keeps their own hat on: the capital. A woven phrase is a guest who joins your family at the table and sits in the middle of the row; it takes its hat off like everyone else. Only a guest whose name is on the hat - a name, or I - keeps it on wherever they sit.

A quoted full sentence introduced by that becomes part of your sentence: Our principal said that the library "will stay open until six". Many writers quote only the words after that, so the question of a capital does not arise. If you keep the whole quoted sentence after that, many styles lower its first capital to fit, and some mark the change with square brackets: said that "[t]he library will stay open". Quoting fewer words is usually neater.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a source's sentence that starts with a capital, woven into yours. Tagore's poem begins with the line "Where the mind is without fear". Suppose you weave it into your own sentence: Tagore imagined a country "where the mind is without fear" and every head held high. Tagore imagined a country "[w]here the mind is without fear" and every head held high. In Tagore's poem, Where has a capital because it opens a line and a sentence. In your sentence it is no longer at the start of anything - it follows a country - so its capital would sit in the middle of your sentence for no reason. Most styles let you lower it. They differ on how. Many styles, especially for essays and general writing, allow the change silently: "where the mind is without fear". Stricter academic and legal styles want every change inside a quotation to be visible, so they put the changed letter in square brackets: "[w]here". Both are honest - one trusts the reader, the other shows the reader. Follow the style you have been given. What neither allows is keeping the capital: a country "Where the mind is without fear". And neither allows changing anything else. The rest of the line stays exactly as Tagore wrote it. The simplest escape is often to quote a little less - a country where "the mind is without fear" - so the quotation begins with a word that was never capitalised in the first place.

Newspapers weave quotations in all the time, and a single capital can change what a headline seems to say. Compare two sentences about an invented review: The critic called the film "A triumph". The critic called the film "a triumph". The second is how careful writers would print it. The first looks as if A Triumph might be a title - another film, perhaps - because a capital in the middle of a sentence usually means a name. Readers use capitals as signposts, and a stray one points somewhere that does not exist. That is the real reason woven quotations start small: not because a rulebook says so, but because a capital in mid-sentence tells the reader 'a name or a new sentence starts here'. When neither is true, the capital misleads.

Whether and how a lowered capital is marked - silently, or with square brackets - differs by style; items here key only that a woven phrase starts small, and treat the bracket as one standard way to show the change. Where the closing comma or full stop goes after a quotation is chapter 17's (American and British practice differ) and is not keyed. The capital after split speech is Practice's and chapter 17's. Quotations are from public-domain works (Shakespeare, Austen, Tagore's 1912 Gitanjali, Gibran's The Prophet) quoted exactly, or from invented sources.

1. Decide first: is the quotation a full sentence after a signal phrase, or a phrase woven into your sentence?
2. Keep the opening capital of a full quoted sentence after a signal phrase.
3. Start a woven phrase with a small letter.
4. Keep names and I tall inside every quotation.
5. Take the marks away and read the sentence - the capital you would write there is the one you keep.
6. If you lower a source's capital, change nothing else inside the marks.
7. Use square brackets for a changed letter when your style asks for them.
8. Quote fewer words when a capital would get in the way.

• Our principal announced, "The library will stay open until six."
• Tagore hoped for a country "where the mind is without fear" and every head held high.
• The coach called our win "a quiet revolution" in Pune.
• In Hamlet, Polonius advises, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
• Austen's narrator mocks a "truth universally acknowledged" in the very first line.
• Gibran writes that children "come through you but not from you" in The Prophet.

• The notice warned, "Phones must stay in lockers during exams."
• Our teacher called the essay "a promising start" and asked for one more draft.
• Tagore prays, "Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."
• Macbeth calls life "a walking shadow" in his despair.
• Antony begins, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears."
• A sign in a Cairo market promised "fresh dates every morning" to passing shoppers.

Offices and government titles

Where the title sits decides its capital.

In every row, the places and bodies stay tall: Kerala, India, the Reserve Bank of India.

This is the Name Test applied to offices: a title that has become part of one person's name stands tall; a title that names a kind of job does not; and where the title only points to one holder, your house style decides.

Most slips come from treating every office the same way. Read what the title is doing.

Two small words help. A, an and any almost always signal a kind of job - a mayor, any president - so the title stays small. A name straight after the title - Mayor Fernandes, Senator Torres - signals the capital.

Words like former, then and late sit outside the title: former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh keeps former small because it describes when, not who.

Think of an office as a chair. When a person's name is written on the chair - Prime Minister Nehru - the title and the name are one label, and the label stands tall. When you talk about chairs in general - a prime minister, any president - you are describing furniture, and furniture stays small. When you point at the one chair in the room without reading its label - the Prime Minister - some house styles write the label tall and some do not. Pick a style, and point the same way every time.

An office used when you speak to its holder takes a capital, because it is being used as a name: "Thank you, Governor." This is the same move as "Good morning, Doctor" in Practice. The famous British comedy series Yes, Prime Minister takes its title from exactly this: the civil servants address the head of government by the office, as if it were a name.

Here is the case that takes judgement: an office with no name after it, meaning one particular person. The Chief Minister of Kerala opened the new bridge. The chief minister of Kerala opened the new bridge. Both sentences mean one person - whoever holds that office today. Indian government writing, many Indian newspapers and British official documents use capitals: the Chief Minister, the Prime Minister, the President of India. American style, and some newspapers in Britain and elsewhere, keep them small unless a name follows: the chief minister, the president. Neither is careless. The capital style treats the office-holder as a particular person, almost a name. The small style says that a title is a title until a name makes it part of one. Style guides have argued about this for generations, and no side has won. So in your own writing, the judgement is not which is right, but which you are following. An essay for an Indian board exam will usually look natural with the Prime Minister. A piece for an American publication will usually use the prime minister. Either way, the capital must stay the same every time the same office-holder appears. What does not change in any style: the title before a name stands tall - Prime Minister Nehru - and the title after a, an or any stays small - a prime minister. Those are fixed. Only the space between them is a choice.

The same word can be a name, a job and a style choice in three sentences in a row. President Rajendra Prasad took office in 1950. Every club needs a president. The President of India lives at Rashtrapati Bhavan. In the first, President sits before a name and stands tall in every style. In the second, it is a kind of job, small in every style. In the third, it points to the office-holder - capital in Indian official usage, while an American paper would write the president of India. Rajendra Prasad was India's first President, and Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi is the President's official residence. Nothing about the office changes between the sentences. Only the job the word is doing changes - and the capital follows the job, not the importance of the person.

Capitals for a particular office-holder named only by the office - the Prime Minister / the prime minister, the Chief Minister of Kerala / the chief minister of Kerala - are standard in both forms; items here key them only when the stem names the style (Indian or British official usage, American style, or a style defined in the stem). Plurals of offices are left unkeyed, because Indian official writing often capitalises them. Keyed in every style: a capital for a title directly before a name, and lower case after a, an or any. Real office-holders are named only for historical facts that are certain; other officials are invented. Honorifics such as Shri and Smt. belong to the Master band.

1. Look for a name straight after the title - if there is one, the title stands tall.
2. Look for a, an or any before the title - if there is one, the title stays small.
3. For an office-holder named only by the office, choose Indian and British official style (capital) or American style (small).
4. Keep that choice every time the same office appears in the piece.
5. Capitalise both main words of a two-word title before a name: Chief Minister Iyer.
6. Keep former, then and late small in the middle of a sentence.
7. Keep places and bodies tall in every style: Kerala, the Lok Sabha.
8. Capitalise a title used to address its holder: Thank you, Governor.

• Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru spoke at midnight on 14 August 1947.
• India has had many prime ministers since 1947.
• The Chief Minister of Kerala opened the new bridge.
• Prime Minister Winston Churchill spoke to Britain on the radio during the war.
• An American newspaper would write that the president met reporters on Monday.
• President Nelson Mandela led South Africa from 1994 to 1999.

• Our school in Indore invited a minister, a mayor and two judges to prize day.
• Rajendra Prasad became the first President of India in 1950.
• Reporters waited outside the Reserve Bank of India to hear the Governor speak.
• Every town near Oxford sent a mayor to the meeting.
• British government documents refer to the Prime Minister for the office-holder.
• Senator Ana Torres of Chile opened the conference in Santiago.

Historic periods and events

A named period or event is a name. A word that only measures time or describes a kind of event is not.

• 🔍 Ask: could you look it up as one particular period or event? Then it is a name.
• 🕑 Centuries and decades stay small - they are measures of time, not names.
• 📚 Choose your Empire / empire style and keep it.

This is question two of the Name Test, applied to history: one particular event or period - a name you could look up - takes a capital; a kind of thing stays small.

The same word can be a name in one sentence and an ordinary word in the next. Read each pair carefully.

Notice the last column. Once a sentence has named the war, a second mention as 'the war' is an ordinary noun pointing back, so it stays small. And 'a renaissance' with a small r means any revival - the general sense the name grew from.

Ages and eras are mixed. Settled names take capitals - the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Middle Ages. Looser labels made with a proper adjective often keep the second word small: the Victorian era, the Gupta period. Dictionaries and textbooks settle each one; when in doubt, follow the book you are using.

Picture a long timeline pinned along a classroom wall. Some points on it carry a printed label card - the Partition, the Renaissance, the Quit India Movement - and those labels are names, so they are written tall. The ruler marks along the bottom - the 1800s, the nineteenth century, the next decade - are just measurements. You read them, but they are never labels, so they stay small.

Start with the easiest cases: wars and battles with numbers or places in them. The First World War, the Second World War, the Third Battle of Panipat. Each is one particular event with a fixed name, so every main word takes a capital and only small joining words like 'of' stay low. Once these are automatic, add the one-word names that need 'the' in front - the Partition, the Renaissance, the Emergency - and check that 'the' itself stays small.

Three kinds of case need judgement. First, the common word after a name. Mughal is a name, so it always takes a capital. Empire is a common word. Many textbooks treat 'the Mughal Empire' as one full name and capitalise both words; other writers treat 'empire' as a description added to the name and write 'the Mughal empire'. The same split appears with 'the Vijayanagara Empire' and 'the Maurya Empire'. Both styles are standard. Choose one, or follow your textbook, and keep it. Second, names that are also ordinary words. 'The Emergency' names the period of 1975 to 1977 in India; 'an emergency' is any sudden crisis. 'The Partition' is the partition of India in 1947; 'a partition' is a dividing wall. Ask which one the sentence means before you choose the letter. Third, eras made from names. The Stone Age and the Middle Ages are settled names with capitals. The Victorian era and the Gupta period more often keep 'era' and 'period' small, because the capital already sits on the name that makes them. Dictionaries decide individual cases; a careful writer checks one and follows it.

Did you know a century can almost become a name? Historians sometimes write about 'the long nineteenth century' - roughly 1789 to 1914 - as if it were one period with a shape of its own. Even so, most books keep it lower case, because it is still built from a measure of time. The opposite happens too. 'Renaissance' simply means rebirth, from French. Once it was used for one particular rebirth of art and learning in Europe, it became a name and took its capital. The small word is still there, for any revival: the city's cinema is enjoying a renaissance. One word, two letters, two meanings.

This section covers periods, empires, wars, movements and events. Offices such as the Prime Minister are section 25; words made from names, such as Victorian and Mughal used alone, are section 27. Where textbooks differ - 'the Mughal Empire' or 'the Mughal empire', 'the Victorian era' or 'the Victorian Era' - neither form is keyed wrong unless the item names a style. Dates of real events are given only where they are certain.

1. Give every main word of a named period, war, movement or event a capital: the Quit India Movement.
2. Keep small joining words low inside the name: the Third Battle of Panipat.
3. Keep 'the' small in front of a name mid-sentence: the Partition, the Renaissance.
4. Keep centuries and decades small: the nineteenth century, the 1990s.
5. Lower the word again when it stops naming: after the Second World War, 'the war'.
6. With 'a' or 'an' in front, expect a kind of thing: an empire, a revolt.
7. Choose one style for Empire / empire after a name, and keep it throughout.
8. When unsure about an era, check a dictionary or your textbook and follow it.

• The Partition of 1947 divided Punjab and Bengal.
• Gandhiji launched the Quit India Movement in 1942.
• By the eighteenth century, the Mughal Empire had lost much of its power.
• The Second World War ended in 1945, and the war changed Britain for ever.
• Shakespeare wrote his plays during the Renaissance in England.
• The Meiji Restoration of 1868 began a new era in Japan.

• During the Emergency, many newspapers were censored.
• The Green Revolution changed farming in Punjab in the 1960s.
• Akbar built Fatehpur Sikri as a new capital for the empire.
• Our museum trip covered the Stone Age and the Bronze Age.
• Railways spread across Britain during the Victorian era.
• The French Revolution began in 1789, and a revolution in ideas followed.

Proper adjectives and words that lost their capital

A proper adjective is a describing word made from a name. It keeps the capital as long as it still points to that name.

• 🔍 Ask: does the word still point to the name? Then keep the capital.
• 📝 Keep the noun after it small: Indian food, not Indian Food.
• 📚 Check a dictionary for words that may have lost their capital.

This is question two of the Name Test, extended: a word made from one particular name keeps that name's capital; once it only says what kind of thing, it becomes lower case.

Some words sit on both sides at once, with a capital in one meaning and a small letter in another.

China the country is a name; china the porcelain is an ordinary word that grew from it. Roman roads belong to Rome; roman type is a printing term that no longer points there. Mughal still names the dynasty, so it keeps its capital every time.

Names of units follow the same path. The watt is named after James Watt, but a sixty-watt bulb is written small; the name keeps its capital only as a person: James Watt improved the steam engine.

Picture a proper adjective as a child still holding a parent's hand - Shakespearean holding Shakespeare, Indian holding India - and the capital is that hand. Some words grow up, let go and walk off on their own: sandwich, boycott, jodhpurs, quixotic. Once they have let go, the capital stays behind with the name. A few, like herculean, are halfway across the road, and dictionaries still disagree about which side they are on.

Begin with nationalities and places, which you met in Practice: Indian, Kenyan, Tamil, Hyderabadi, Parisian. Each is a describing word made from a name, and each keeps its capital while the noun after it stays small - Tamil poetry, Kenyan tea, Parisian cafes. Then add adjectives made from people - Shakespearean, Gandhian, Victorian - which work the same way. Only after those are automatic, meet the words that lost their capital.

How do you know whether a word made from a name has lost its capital? You cannot always tell by feel, but three clues help. First, does the word still make you think of the name? Gandhian ideas point straight to Gandhi, so the capital stays. A cardigan does not make most people think of the Earl of Cardigan, so the capital has gone. Second, has the word become a verb or a common noun? Boycott is now a verb (to boycott) and a noun (a boycott). Pasteurise is a verb for a process. Words that move into new word classes like this usually lose the capital. Third, has the word gained a new, general meaning? Quixotic no longer means 'like Don Quixote' in a narrow way; it means idealistic and impractical, about anything. Once a word describes a quality rather than a person or place, it tends to be written small. None of these clues is a law. Language moves word by word, and a good dictionary records where each word is today. When dictionaries differ - herculean, braille - both forms are standard, and the rule is simply to keep the one you choose.

Several ordinary English words began as Indian place names. Calico, a plain cotton cloth, takes its name from Calicut - today Kozhikode, in Kerala - where it was traded. Jodhpurs, the riding trousers, take theirs from Jodhpur in Rajasthan. Both were once written with capitals, when they still meant 'cloth from Calicut' and 'trousers in the Jodhpur style'. Today they are ordinary words, written small in any dictionary. The cities themselves keep their capitals, of course: Jodhpur and Kozhikode are names. So a single sentence can show both stages of the journey: She bought a pair of jodhpurs in Jodhpur.

This section covers describing words made from names and words that lost their capitals. Nationalities and languages as nouns were Practice section 11; brand names that keep their owners' capitals were section 19; named periods such as the Victorian era were section 26. Where dictionaries disagree - herculean / Herculean, braille / Braille, french fries / French fries - neither form is keyed wrong. Only word histories that are well recorded are given; the rest are left out.

1. Give every describing word made from a place or person a capital while it still points there: Indian, Gandhian.
2. Keep the noun after a proper adjective small: Hyderabadi biryani, a Kashmiri shawl.
3. Write words that have lost their capital in lower case mid-sentence: sandwich, boycott, quixotic.
4. Tell the meanings apart: China the country, china the porcelain.
5. Keep units small and names tall: a sixty-watt bulb, James Watt.
6. When unsure, check the word in a dictionary and follow it.
7. Where dictionaries list both forms, choose one and keep it throughout.
8. Never 'correct' a writer who uses the other dictionary form.

• Anjali's grandmother wore a Kashmiri shawl to the wedding.
• The Gandhian idea of non-violence shaped the freedom struggle.
• The riders at the polo ground wore jodhpurs and boots.
• We studied a Shakespearean sonnet in our English lesson.
• The villagers decided to boycott the new shop.
• In Lyon, my aunt buys only pasteurised milk.

• Hyderabadi biryani is cooked slowly in a sealed pot.
• The Mughal gardens of Srinagar are laid out in terraces.
• Cotton cloth from Calicut gave English the word calico.
• The Victorian station in Leeds still has its iron roof.
• Crossing the desert by bicycle was a quixotic plan.
• Tomas wore a paisley scarf to the concert in Prague.

Acronyms and initialisms

A short form made from first letters is written in capitals. Its full form takes capitals only if the full form is a name.

• 🔍 Write the short form in capitals: CBSE, ISRO, UPI.
• 📝 Spell out with capitals only for a name: the Indian Space Research Organisation, but a personal identification number.
• 📚 Choose ISRO or Isro style for spoken acronyms, and keep it.

This links to the Name Test: the capitals in a short form stand for the first letters of words, and in a full form only one particular name - an organisation, a board, a channel - takes capitals; an ordinary phrase stays small.

Look at how the same short forms behave in running sentences.

The first time you use a short form in an essay or report, give the full form once, with the short form in brackets: the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). After that, use the short form alone.

The plural takes a small s and no apostrophe: ATMs, MLAs, PDFs. The apostrophe for plurals was chapter 17's; the capitals stay exactly as they are.

Picture each capital in a short form as a tiny flag planted on the first letter of a word in a name. ISRO carries four flags - Indian, Space, Research, Organisation. When a short form is used so often that people forget the words behind it - laser, radar, scuba - the flags are pulled up one by one, and what is left is an ordinary word in small letters.

Start with the short forms you already write every day: CBSE or ICSE, your school's board; UPI, the payment system; ATM, the cash machine. Write each in capitals. Then practise saying each one aloud. If you say it as a word - ISRO, AIIMS - it is an acronym; if you spell it out letter by letter - CBSE, ATM - it is an initialism. Both kinds use capitals; the difference matters only for house styles such as Isro.

Three cases need judgement. First, spoken acronyms in house style. Some newspapers write acronyms that are said as words with one capital once they reach a certain length or familiarity: Nato, Unesco, Isro. Others keep all capitals: NATO, UNESCO, ISRO. Both are standard. The choice belongs to the publication, and a careful writer follows the one in use. Initialisms read letter by letter - CBSE, BBC, UN - are not lowered in any common style. Second, full forms. Spell out ISRO and you write a name: the Indian Space Research Organisation. Spell out ATM and you write an ordinary phrase: an automated teller machine. The test is the Name Test itself. Is the full form one particular organisation, board, channel or law? Capitals. Is it a kind of thing - a machine, a number, a tax in general? Lower case. So gross domestic product is small, while the Goods and Services Tax, the name of one particular Indian tax, is usually capitalised. Third, acronyms that became words. Laser, radar, sonar and scuba are now ordinary nouns in every major dictionary. Mid-sentence, they are small, and they take ordinary plurals: lasers, radars. You may still see LASER in older technical writing; in plain prose today, it is small.

Many people use the word laser every day without knowing it was ever a short form. It began in the late 1950s as LASER: light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Scuba began as SCUBA: self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Within a generation, both had become ordinary words, and dictionaries now print them in lower case. Indian short forms may be making the same journey. People already say 'Send it on UPI' or 'I'll get cash from the ATM' without thinking of the full forms. For now they are written in capitals. Whether they will ever become ordinary words, like laser, is something only usage will decide.

This section covers short forms made from first letters. Full stops in abbreviations such as Dr and Mrs belong to other sections; the apostrophe in plurals is chapter 17's. Where house styles differ - NATO / Nato, ISRO / Isro, UNESCO / Unesco - neither form is keyed wrong unless the item names a style. Full forms are given only for organisations whose names are certain; official spellings (such as Organization in some international names) are left alone rather than changed.

1. Write initialisms read letter by letter in capitals: CBSE, BBC, UN, IIT.
2. Write acronyms said as words in capitals, unless your style lowers them: ISRO or Isro.
3. Follow the style of your school, newspaper or company for spoken acronyms, and keep it.
4. Give the full form once, with the short form in brackets, the first time you use it.
5. Capitalise a full form only when it is a name: the Central Board of Secondary Education.
6. Keep an ordinary full form small: an automated teller machine, a personal identification number.
7. Write acronyms that became words in lower case: laser, radar, scuba.
8. Form plurals with a small s and no apostrophe: ATMs, MLAs.

• ISRO launched Chandrayaan-3 from Sriharikota in 2023.
• Our school follows the CBSE syllabus.
• Farhan paid for the samosas through UPI.
• We watched a BBC documentary about the Arctic.
• The eye surgeon used a laser to reshape the cornea.
• FIFA has its headquarters in Zurich.

• Rehana applied to AIIMS in New Delhi.
• The shop added GST to the bill.
• The report named the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) once, then used BCCI alone.
• Never share the PIN for your card, even at the bank.
• The airport's radar tracked the storm all night.
• NATO has its headquarters in Brussels.

Religious and respectful terms

Religious names are names. General words about worship are kinds of things.

• 🔍 Ask: is it a name? Faith, follower, text, deity, festival, named place - capital.
• 📝 Keep general words small: a temple, a prayer, a god.
• 🤝 Treat every tradition alike - the same rule for all.

This is question two of the Name Test: one particular faith, text, being, festival or place is a name and takes a capital; a kind of thing stays small.

The same word can be a name or a general word. Read each pair.

Notice 'the Buddha'. It is a title - 'the awakened one' - used as a name, so it keeps its capital even with 'the' in front, as the Prophet does in 'the Prophet Muhammad'.

Adjectives made from these names keep the capital as proper adjectives do: Vedic hymns, Quranic verses, Buddhist monks. Biblical is split: dictionaries list both biblical and Biblical, and both are standard.

Picture a long street in an Indian city with a temple, a mosque, a church, a gurdwara and a fire temple side by side. Each building has its own signboard - the Golden Temple, the Jama Masjid, St Paul's Cathedral - and every signboard is painted with the same tall capitals. The words temple, mosque and church, spoken by people walking past, are small. Every sign on the street follows the same rule; none is painted taller than another.

Start with festivals, which you met in Discover: Diwali, Eid, Christmas, Gurpurab, Pongal, Navroz, Buddha Purnima. Each is a name with a capital. Then add the faiths behind them - Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism - and their followers - a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Sikh, a Parsi, a Buddhist. Only then add sacred texts and holy figures, which follow exactly the same rule.

Three cases need care. First, god and God. With a small g, god is a general word for any deity: the gods of Greek myth, Surya the sun god, a household god. With a capital, God is the name used for the one God in faiths such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. So 'Many Sikhs call God Waheguru' has a capital, and 'Zeus was a Greek god' does not. Names of particular deities - Shiva, Durga, Ganesha, Zeus, Athena - always take capitals, because each is a name. Second, titles and descriptions. 'Lord Krishna' and 'Goddess Lakshmi' put a title directly before a name, so the title takes a capital, just as Doctor Rao does. 'Krishna, a much-loved god' and 'the goddess Lakshmi' use the word as a description, so it stays small - just as 'the doctor, Rao' would. Both patterns are correct; they are different sentences. Third, house styles. Capitalising He, His and Him for God is common in prayer books and in some religious writing, and less common in newspapers and many modern styles. Both are standard. Biblical and biblical are both listed in dictionaries. Where a style decides, choose one - or follow the one you are given - and keep it. Never mark the other as an error.

Hindi, Punjabi and many other Indian languages written in Devanagari or Gurmukhi have no capital letters at all. So a Hindi prayer book cannot show respect with a capital - the script does not have one. When these names come into English, they take capitals simply because English gives capitals to names: Waheguru, Ishvara, Bhagavad Gita, Guru Granth Sahib. The capital is English grammar, not a new layer of reverence. That is why every tradition's names take capitals equally - not because some names are more important, but because every one of them is a name.

This section describes how English capitalises religious names; it does not rank or judge any faith. Traditions appear in balance across India's faiths. Spellings of names that have several English forms - Quran, Qur'an, Koran; Gurpurab, Gurpurb - are standard in their different forms and are never keyed. He / he for God and Biblical / biblical are house-style choices and are never keyed wrong. Offices such as the Pope follow section 25's rules.

1. Capitalise every faith and its followers: Jainism, a Jain; Islam, a Muslim.
2. Capitalise sacred texts: the Guru Granth Sahib, the Quran, the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita.
3. Capitalise God as a name, and the names of deities: Allah, Waheguru, Shiva, Durga.
4. Keep god small for a god in general: the gods of Greek myth.
5. Capitalise a title directly before a name: Lord Krishna, Guru Nanak, the Prophet Muhammad.
6. Keep general words small: a temple, a mosque, a church, a gurdwara, a prayer.
7. Choose He or he for God by your style, and keep it throughout.
8. Apply the same rule to every tradition in the same piece.

• Gurpreet reads from the Guru Granth Sahib at the gurdwara every morning.
• During Ramadan, many Muslims read the Quran each evening.
• Diwali, Christmas and Buddha Purnima are holidays at our school.
• Many Christians go to church on Easter Sunday.
• One hymn book writes He for God, and another writes he.
• Zeus was the king of the gods in Greek myth.

• The Jama Masjid in Delhi is one of India's largest mosques.
• In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna speaks to Arjuna.
• Navroz, the Parsi New Year, is celebrated in Mumbai with feasts.
• Lucy's family lights candles each night of Hanukkah.
• Sam's class visited a Sikh gurdwara and a Hindu temple in Leicester.
• Monks at a temple in Kyoto chant Buddhist sutras at dawn.

Edit for a real reader

The Name Test is the editor's routine at every capital: beginning, name, or kind? Then check it against the style sheet - and keep it when it already passes.

• 🔍 Wrong in any style - fix it.
• 📝 Breaks the chosen style - fix it to match.
• 📚 A standard choice the piece holds - keep it.

Here is the report as the editor returned it, with every decision made.

Notice what did not change. 'Our principal' stays small, because it follows 'our' and describes Mrs Iyer's job. The Prime Minister's Office is the name of one particular office, so it keeps its capitals in every style. And the full stop after "a small miracle" stays outside - the magazine's British placement from chapter 17.

Four of the fixes were wrong in any style: the Partition and the Guru Granth Sahib are names, a woven-in fragment starts small, and laser lost its capitals long ago. Three broke the magazine's own style: the title-case subheading, the colon capital and Isro.

Picture the editor with two pens. The red pen is for anything wrong in every style - a small name, a capital on a kind word, a capital that belongs to a woven-in phrase. The blue pen is for anything that breaks this magazine's own sheet - a title-case subheading, a capital after a colon, Isro. Beside the pens lies a green tick for every capital that is right, and most of the page ends up covered in green ticks.

Edit in three passes rather than one. First pass: names - every person, place, event, faith, text and short form. Second pass: the style sheet - headings, colons, acronyms, and any Empire or He choice. Third pass: the kind words - is anything tall that should be small, such as a temple, a century or a laser? Three short passes catch more than one long one, and each pass asks a single question.

The hardest part of editing is knowing when to stop. First, some capitals in the draft are house-style choices that the magazine has already made. The Mughal Empire could be written the Mughal empire in another book; here the sheet says Empire, and the draft follows it. Changing it would create a second style. The same would be true of He or he for God, or NATO and Nato, in a piece that already holds one. Second, some capitals look unusual but are names. 'The Prime Minister's Office' names one particular office, so it keeps its capitals whatever a style says about 'the prime minister' in general. 'Our principal, Mrs Iyer' keeps principal small because it follows 'our' - that is a description, not a title before a name. Third, some lines contain two decisions. "A small miracle" is one fault (the capital) inside a line with one keep (the full stop outside, British style). An editor who fixes one must not disturb the other. So the editor asks three questions of every capital: is it wrong in any style? Does it break this sheet? Or is it a standard choice the piece already holds? Only the first two get a pen.

Professional editors often write a style sheet for each book or magazine: a short list of every choice the piece makes - sentence case or title case, Nato or NATO, Empire or empire, He or he. The sheet travels with the manuscript from writer to editor to proofreader, so that nobody 'corrects' a choice another person made on purpose. The surprise is how short these sheets are. Most of capitalisation is settled by the Name Test, which never changes. The sheet only has to record the handful of places where careful writers differ. Four lines at the top of this report were enough to decide every capital in it.

This capstone draws on every Craft section, S21 to S29. Each decision is keyed against the magazine's named style sheet; where the sheet decides (headings, colons, acronyms, Empire), the other standard form is described as correct elsewhere and never called an error on its own. Quotation-mark placement is chapter 17's and is left as the magazine's British style. The Prime Minister's Office is treated as a name, so the both-standard question of 'the Prime Minister' for a particular holder is not keyed here.

1. Write or read the style sheet before you edit a single capital.
2. Run the Name Test on every capital: beginning, name, or kind?
3. Fix anything wrong in every style: small names, tall kind words, tall woven fragments.
4. Fix anything that breaks the sheet: heading style, colon style, acronym style.
5. Keep every standard choice the piece already holds, even if you would choose differently.
6. Give a reason for each change - wrong in any style, or breaks the sheet.
7. Edit in three passes: names, the style sheet, then kind words.
8. Read the finished piece once more, only for consistency.

• Class 9 built a model of Fatehpur Sikri, capital of the Mughal Empire in the sixteenth century.
• Class 8 showed maps of the Partition of 1947.
• A retired scientist from ISRO called the rocket stall "a small miracle".
• Stalls from the Mughals to Mars
• Oliver's stall on Shakespearean theatre won a prize.
• Ms Tanaka's stall compared the Meiji Restoration with the Quit India Movement.

• History and science fair: a day of discoveries
• The festivals stall showed the Guru Granth Sahib, the Quran, the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita.
• The fair opened with one message from our principal, Mrs Iyer: every stall must tell a true story.
• A letter from the Prime Minister's Office praised the fair, and a laser show ended the day.
• Next month's theme: the Industrial Revolution in Victorian Britain
• A guest from UNESCO will speak about the Silk Road.

Thinking like a writer · ages 16–19

A short history of capital letters

The Name Test - beginning, name, or kind? - is the modern answer to a very old question: once writing had two sets of letters, which words should get the big ones?

• 🔍 see that capitals came first and small letters came later
• 📎 name the printers' cases behind 'upper' and 'lower'
• 📚 read an old capital as the habit of its time, not a mistake

Scholars use two older words for the two sets of letters. Majuscules are the large letters, written between two lines; minuscules are the small letters, whose strokes can climb above the middle or drop below the line.

The noun habit of the 1600s and 1700s was never a single rule. Some writers capitalised almost every noun; others capitalised only the ones they thought important; printers sometimes added capitals of their own. By the early 1800s the habit had largely faded from English print, while German kept it and still capitalises every noun today.

Picture a printer's workshop. On the sloping stand sit two wooden cases of metal letters. The upper case holds the tall capitals, used less often, so it can sit a little out of reach. The lower case, close to the printer's hand, holds the small letters used in almost every word. Every time you say 'lower case', you are pointing at that drawer - and the Name Test decides when your hand reaches up.

This section opens the Master band by standing behind every rule of the chapter. Discover taught the capital at a beginning and for a name; Practice and Craft sorted names from kinds and chose styles. Here you see where the two sets of letters came from. S32 looks at what capitals do to tone today, S33 at words that are losing their capitals, and S35 at languages that made other choices.

Here is the hard case. A 1760s letter reads: 'I have sent the Tea, and the Sugar will follow by the next Ship to Madras.' A student modernising it for a school anthology asks which capitals to keep. First, run the Name Test on each capital. I is the word I - keep it. Madras names one particular city - keep it, and keep the old name, because the letter was written when that was the city's name; a footnote can mention Chennai. Second, look at Tea, Sugar and Ship. Each is a kind of thing, not a name. In the 1760s many writers capitalised such nouns; a modern edition following today's rules lowers them: 'I have sent the tea, and the sugar will follow by the next ship to Madras.' Third, decide what kind of edition you are making. A modernised text for readers today changes the capitals and says so in a note. A faithful edition for historians keeps every original capital, because the capitals are part of the evidence. The principle is to separate the rule from the habit. Beginnings, I and names were capitalised then and now; kind words were capitalised then by habit and are small now by rule. State which edition you are making, and apply one approach throughout.

Danish once capitalised every noun, as German does. A spelling reform in 1948 changed that, and Danish nouns have been written in lower case since. German kept the old habit, so a German sentence today still looks, in one way, like an English page from the 1700s. A second surprise sits in your keyboard. The Shift key does not add a capital to a letter; on early typewriters it physically shifted the type so that a different letter struck the page - the capital cast on the same bar as the small one. The word still describes a movement between two sets of letters that printers had kept in two different cases.

The history of letter forms is long and varied, so this section gives only well-established outlines. Dates are hedged ('by the Middle Ages', 'around the late eighth century') because scripts changed gradually and differently from place to place. The explanation for the capital I is traditional, not proven. The arrangement of upper and lower cases varied between printing shops. Old documents are described, never corrected, unless you are openly modernising them.

1. Treat the capitals in an old text as the habit of its time, not as errors.
2. When you modernise an old text, run the Name Test on every capital and say in a note that you have modernised.
3. When you quote an old text exactly, keep every original capital.
4. Do not bring back the noun habit: a capital shows a name, not importance.
5. Hedge dates in the history of letters - 'by the Middle Ages', not an invented year.
6. Use 'upper case' for capitals and 'lower case' for small letters, and remember the printers' cases behind them.
7. Remember that other languages kept or dropped capitals by their own choices.

• Meera photographed the capitals on Trajan's Column in Rome.
• In an old letter, Rohan found the words Tea and Sugar written with capitals.
• A modern edition prints it as the tea and the sugar.
• Olivia learned that printers kept capitals in the upper case.
• For centuries, English writers have kept I as a capital.
• In German, Lukas still writes every noun with a capital.

• Anika's history project compares a Roman inscription with a page from a modern novel.
• Faisal read that monks in Ireland copied books by hand.
• The Carolingian script spread across Charlemagne's empire.
• Harry typed the heading in lower case on purpose.
• Amelia's copy of a 1760s letter keeps every Capital as written.
• Sofia noticed that Danish nouns lost their capitals in 1948.

Capitals for emphasis and shouting

The Name Test - beginning, name, or kind? - decides where capitals belong in a sentence; capitals used for emphasis sit outside it, as a style choice about tone.

• 🔍 notice when capitals mark tone rather than a name
• 📎 choose bold, italics or a reason before capitals
• 📚 keep capitals for short warnings and single key words

Capitals for emphasis are older than the internet, and they have been used for different reasons in different places.

Capitals can also be playful. Writers sometimes capitalise ordinary words to make them sound grand or official - A. A. Milne's Pooh calls himself 'a Bear of Very Little Brain'. That is a deliberate effect, used for humour, and it works because readers know the Name Test rule it breaks.

Think of capitals as the volume knob on your writing. Normal sentence case is speaking at a comfortable level. One capitalised word is leaning in and stressing a syllable. A whole message in capitals is the knob turned all the way up - and your reader hears the volume before the words. Bold and italics are a raised eyebrow: noticeable, but quiet. A clear reason is a calm voice that still gets the point across.

S31 showed how capitals came to mark beginnings and names. This section looks at a use that sits outside that rule: capitals for tone. It builds on Craft S22, where headings and subject lines needed one consistent style. S33 turns to words whose ordinary capitals are changing, and S38 shows why exam items test the Name Test, not the tone of capitals.

Here is the hard case. A class group gets this message from a student representative: 'IMPORTANT: the trip money is due on Monday. NO late payments will be accepted.' Is anything wrong, and what would you change? First, run the Name Test on the ordinary capitals. The message begins with a word in capitals; Monday is a day name and is correctly capitalised. The lower-case 'the' after the colon is fine in a style that lowers after a colon, and 'The' would also be standard. Nothing here is a Name Test error. Second, look at the capitals for emphasis. 'IMPORTANT:' works like a short label on a notice, and many readers accept it. 'NO late payments' raises the voice in the middle of a sentence and may read as a threat. Third, choose a calmer tool that keeps the meaning. 'Important: the trip money is due on Monday. The school cannot accept late payments.' The label stays, the deadline is clear, and the reason replaces the volume. The principle: separate what is wrong from what is a choice. Name Test errors are corrected. Capitals for emphasis are described by their effect on the reader, and changed only when a calmer version does the same job.

The idea that capitals mean shouting is older than smartphones. Early netiquette guides in the 1990s were already advising people on forums and email to type in mixed case, because text in capitals looked like shouting. A second surprise: many telegrams printed on paper strips were entirely in capitals, not because senders were angry but because the machines that carried them had no small letters. A telegram reading ARRIVING TUESDAY STOP was simply the technology of its time.

How capitals sound depends on the reader, the relationship and the platform, so this section describes common readings, not fixed rules. Research on reading speed with capitals is summarised only in its well-established outline. The 'word outline' explanation is one explanation among several. Legal uses of capitals vary by jurisdiction and are described generally. Capitals used for emphasis are never keyed as errors; only Name Test errors inside such messages are.

1. Write messages in ordinary sentence case, with capitals for beginnings, I and names.
2. Use capitals for emphasis sparingly - one key word, or a short warning or label.
3. Prefer bold, italics or a clear reason when you need emphasis in running text.
4. Never set a long passage entirely in capitals; it is harder to read.
5. Keep the Name Test inside any emphasis: a day or name still needs its capital.
6. Read other people's capitals charitably, and describe their tone rather than mocking it.
7. Follow a document's house style for headings and legal clauses.

• Please send the signed form to Mrs Iyer by Friday.
• Please send the signed form BY FRIDAY.
• Ishaan wrote, "The bus leaves at 7 - please be on time."
• The sign by the river says DANGER - DEEP WATER.
• Oliver's email to the team used bold, not capitals, for the deadline.
• In Nairobi, Wanjiru's shop notice reads OPEN SUNDAYS.

• Rhea's school notice used bold for the words no phones.
• Arjun found a 1940s telegram reading ARRIVING TUESDAY STOP.
• The heading on Divya's poster was set in capitals: SCIENCE FAIR.
• Pooh calls himself a Bear of Very Little Brain.
• Jack's lease set one clause in capitals so it stood out.
• Mateo replied to the club in calm sentence case.

Internet or internet? Capitals that change

The Name Test - beginning, name, or kind? - explains why these capitals move: as a word stops naming one particular thing and starts naming a kind of thing, the capital begins to fall away.

• 🔍 ask whether the word names one thing or a kind
• 📎 check whether the change is settled or still moving
• 📚 name your style for moving words, and keep it

Brand names are a special case. A company's own name keeps its capital, but when people start using the brand for the whole kind of product, the word can drift into lower case in everyday speech.

Some words move the other way in particular contexts. Writers on astronomy often capitalise Earth, Sun and Moon when they are treated as named bodies alongside Mars and Jupiter. The same writers may use 'the moon' in an ordinary sentence. Meaning and context decide.

Picture a name as a statue in a square: one particular figure with its own plaque - the capital. When a word becomes ordinary, the statue is copied a thousand times and set on every street corner. Nobody puts a plaque on each copy. That is what happened to boycott and juggernaut. Internet is somewhere in the middle: some streets still keep the plaque, others have taken it down.

Craft S27 showed words made from names that keep their capital (Indian, Shakespearean) and a few that lost it (quixotic, boycott). This section watches the same process happening now, in words like internet and web, and in brands used as verbs. S32 dealt with capitals as tone; S34 turns to 'The' inside names, and S37 compares the style guides that make these choices.

Here is the hard case. A student's science essay reads: 'Scientists study the Earth's layers. Farmers test the earth for nutrients. The moon affects the tides on Earth.' A classmate says the capitals are inconsistent. Are they? First, sort the meanings. 'The Earth's layers' and 'on Earth' refer to the planet. 'Test the earth for nutrients' refers to soil - a kind of thing - so it is small in every style. Second, look at the planet uses. Many science writers capitalise Earth when it is treated as a named planet, and some write 'the earth' in general sentences. Either can be standard; the essay should choose one approach for the planet and keep it. Here both planet uses have a capital, so they are consistent. Third, look at 'the moon'. In everyday writing, 'the moon' is usually small; astronomy writing may write the Moon, especially beside Earth and Mars. An essay that capitalises Earth might reasonably capitalise Moon too, for consistency, but lower-case moon is not an error. The verdict: the soil use is correctly small, the planet uses are consistent, and 'moon' is a style choice. The principle: first decide meaning, then apply one named style to every word of the same kind.

The English word juggernaut, meaning a huge force that crushes whatever is in its way, comes from Jagannath - the deity worshipped at the great temple in Puri, Odisha, whose enormous chariots are pulled through the streets during the Rath Yatra festival. English writers turned the name into a common noun centuries ago, and the capital fell away. In Indian writing, Jagannath the deity keeps the capital, and the festival is Rath Yatra. A second surprise: AP's 2016 change to lower-case internet was announced to an audience of editors, and it made news of its own. A capital letter on a single word was reported as a change in how the world thought about the network.

Style guides and dictionaries change at different times, and this section states only well-established changes: AP's 2016 move to lower-case internet and web, and long-settled words such as boycott and juggernaut. Trade-mark status varies between countries and is described generally. Earth, Sun and Moon are described as depending on context and house style. Both forms of every still-moving word are standard; neither is keyed wrong unless a stem names a style.

1. Decide the meaning first: one particular thing takes a capital, a kind of thing does not.
2. For a moving word such as internet or web, choose a form, name the style, and keep it throughout.
3. Capitalise Earth when you mean the planet as a named body, if your style does; always write earth small when you mean soil.
4. Keep a company's capital (Google) even when the everyday verb (to google) is lower case.
5. Use neutral words in formal writing: search online, vacuum.
6. Write settled words small: boycott, juggernaut, sandwich.
7. Never mark another writer's standard form wrong without naming the style.

• Nisha's newspaper writes internet in lower case, following AP.
• Kabir's grandfather still writes the Internet with a capital.
• The chariots of Jagannath roll through Puri during Rath Yatra.
• Emily's class planted seeds in dark, crumbly earth.
• George read that Earth is the third planet from the Sun.
• Yuki said the town would boycott the new plastic bags.

• Tanya's report says "we searched online", not "we googled it".
• Google opened a new office in Hyderabad.
• Vikram's essay calls the election campaign a juggernaut.
• Lucy's flatmate said, "I'll hoover the stairs."
• The World Wide Web changed how Noah did homework.
• Ana's shop sells aspirin and bandages.

"The" in names

The Name Test - beginning, name, or kind? - asks whether a word is part of a name; for 'the', ask whether the owner made it part of the name, or whether English simply puts it in front.

• 🔍 ask whether the owner made The part of the name
• 📎 keep The in titles of works and in The Hague
• 📚 name your style for newspapers and bands, and keep it

Where do writers disagree? Mostly over names of publications, bands and a few institutions that include The in their own form.

Titles of works are the clearest case. The is part of the title, so it keeps its capital: Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. Some writers drop the article after a possessive ('Kipling's Jungle Book'); keeping the full title is the safer choice when precision matters.

Think of a name as a name badge. For The Hague or The Jungle Book, 'The' is printed on the badge itself, so it goes wherever the name goes - capital and all. For the Taj Mahal or the Himalayas, 'the' is not on the badge; it is the word we say as we point to the badge. For newspapers and bands, the owner printed 'The' on the badge, and each house style decides whether to read it out with a capital.

Practice S15 taught that every main word of a multi-word name takes a capital while small words stay small (the Bay of Bengal); Practice S16 taught titles of works. This section asks about the smallest word of all, 'the', at the edge of a name. S33 showed capitals moving over time; S37 compares the style guides that decide cases like The Hindu, and S38 shows why exam items avoid them.

Here is the hard case. A student writes: 'Last year the family flew from the Maldives to The Hague, reading The Hindu on the plane, and later visited the Hague's Peace Palace.' Which capitals are right? First, find the ordinary articles. 'The family' starts nothing and names nothing - small. 'The Maldives' uses the ordinary 'the' that English puts before plural country names - small mid-sentence in most styles. Second, find the names that include the article. The Hague keeps its capital: the article is part of the city's English name. But in 'the Hague's Peace Palace', the article now belongs to the whole phrase 'the Peace Palace' - it is pointing at the palace, not naming the city - so many writers write 'the Hague's Peace Palace', or recast as 'the Peace Palace in The Hague', which avoids the problem. Third, the newspaper. The Hindu with a capital T is the paper's own form; 'the Hindu' would also be standard in a house style that lowers articles before publication names. The student should keep whichever choice they make everywhere else. The principle: for each 'the', ask what it belongs to - the name itself, or the sentence's phrase - and when a sentence makes that unclear, recast it.

Some institutions put The into their official names on purpose. The Energy and Resources Institute in Delhi is known by the initials TERI - the T stands for The. In the United States, The Ohio State University uses The as part of its formal name, even though many writers simply say Ohio State. A second surprise: the West African country The Gambia uses the capital T in its own official usage, while many writers outside the country write 'the Gambia' mid-sentence. The same country, two standard spellings - and a reason to check the owner's form before you correct anyone.

House styles differ on articles before names of newspapers, magazines, bands and some institutions, so those cases are described as both standard. The Hague is given with a capital because that is the city's established English form in most styles. Country names are described for common usage only. Official forms of institutions (TERI, The Ohio State University, The Gambia) are given as the owners use them; other writers' forms are described, not corrected.

1. Write the ordinary 'the' small mid-sentence: the Taj Mahal, the Ganga, the Himalayas, the Netherlands.
2. Keep The where it is part of the name: The Hague, and the first word of any title of a work.
3. For newspapers, magazines and bands, choose The or the mid-sentence, name the style, and keep it.
4. Respect an owner's form (The Gambia, TERI) and do not correct another writer's standard choice.
5. Capitalise any 'the' that starts a sentence, whatever follows.
6. When a possessive or phrase makes the article unclear, recast the sentence.
7. Check a masthead, cover or official site when you are unsure.

• Aditya queued for hours outside the Taj Mahal.
• Every morning, Revathi reads The Hindu over breakfast.
• Imran's book club chose The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.
• Chloe interned at a court in The Hague last summer.
• Sam's playlist is full of songs by the Beatles.
• Fatou was born in The Gambia and studies in Dakar.

• Sunil works for The Energy and Resources Institute, known as TERI.
• The film The Lunchbox follows letters sent through Mumbai's dabbawalas.
• Neha's class sailed past the Gateway of India.
• Ruby's cousin studies at The Ohio State University.
• Luke flew from the United States to the Netherlands.
• Kenji read the Times of India online during the trip.

Capitals across languages

The Name Test - beginning, name, or kind? - is an English test; other languages ask their own questions, and some scripts never needed the question at all.

• 🔍 describe each language by its own rules
• 📎 apply English capitals in English sentences
• 📚 gloss other languages; never judge them

A wider view: some scripts have two cases, some have one, and some pair their letters in surprising ways.

Spanish and Italian follow the French pattern for days, months and languages: Spanish lunes, enero, español; Italian lunedì, gennaio, italiano - all small. German, by contrast, capitalises its formal word for 'you', Sie, while its word for 'I', ich, stays small. English is unusual in giving 'I' a capital at all.

Think of each language as a building with its own signs. In English, name plates and the door marked I are painted in tall letters. In French, only the people's names are tall; the calendar on the wall is written small. In German, every object in the room has a tall label. And in a Devanagari building, every sign uses the same height of letter, and visitors find names by reading the signs, not by their size. Step into a building, and follow its signs.

Practice S11 noted that English capitalises languages and nationalities while French and Spanish do not. S31 showed English dropping its own noun capitals while German kept them. This section sets several languages side by side. S36 turns to conventions within Indian English itself, and S37 compares English style guides.

Here is the hard case. A student's English essay quotes a French phrase and mentions a Hindi word: 'Every lundi, my French class starts with a song, and my nani says the Hindi word for Monday is somvar.' Which capitals follow which language? First, find the English words. Every starts the sentence. French and Hindi are language names used in an English sentence, so they take English capitals. Monday, as an English word, takes its capital. Nani is used after 'my', so it stays small as a family word. Second, find the borrowed words. Lundi is French, and in French the day is written small; when a foreign word is quoted as a foreign word, many writers keep its own spelling and set it in italics. Somvar is a romanised Hindi word; Devanagari has no capitals, so the romanised form follows English habits - small, as an ordinary word, with a capital only if it begins a sentence or is used as a name. Third, check consistency. The essay should treat both borrowed words the same way - for example, both in italics, both small. The principle: each word follows the rules of the language it belongs to in that sentence. English words take English capitals; quoted foreign words keep their own form; romanised words from caseless scripts follow English habits.

English is unusual in writing 'I' as a capital. Its close relatives write the word small: German ich, Dutch ik, Danish and Norwegian jeg, Swedish jag. So does French, with je. A capital I in the middle of a sentence is one of the most recognisable features of written English. A second surprise: when Hindi is written in Roman letters - in text messages, for example - writers usually borrow English capital habits, capitalising names like Priya or Delhi, even though the same words in Devanagari have no capitals at all. The capital comes with the alphabet, not with the language.

This section states only well-established features: German noun capitals and small ich; French, Spanish and Italian small days, months and languages; no case in Devanagari, Tamil, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts; the Turkish i pairs and the Dutch IJ. Each language has more detailed rules and exceptions than a comparison can show; details such as French titles or German adjectives from place names are left out. Other languages are glossed, never judged.

1. In an English sentence, apply English capitals: Monday, I, French, Hindi.
2. When writing French, Spanish or Italian, keep days, months and language names small.
3. When writing German, capitalise every noun and keep ich small.
4. When writing a caseless script such as Devanagari, Tamil or Arabic, do not look for capitals.
5. Keep a quoted foreign word in its own form, often in italics, and treat all such words the same way.
6. Respect letter pairs other languages use: İstanbul, IJsselmeer.
7. Describe other languages' capitals; never call them wrong by English rules.

• Kiara wrote Monday in English and lundi in French.
• Arnav's Hindi notebook, written in Devanagari, has no capital letters at all.
• Zoya learned that Urdu, like Arabic, is written without capitals.
• Emma's German teacher writes every noun with a capital.
• In Spanish, Jacob writes January as enero, in lower case.
• In Turkish, Elif writes the city as İstanbul, with a dotted capital.

• Sneha writes Tamil names in Tamil script without any capitals.
• When Aman types Hindi in Roman letters, names like Delhi take capitals.
• Ritu's Marathi textbook uses Devanagari, like Hindi.
• Grace noticed that French writes le français with a small f.
• Harry learned that the German word ich is small, unlike English I.
• Li Wei's Chinese homework has no capital letters to check.

Capitals in Indian English

Indian English uses the Name Test like any other English: a capital marks one particular thing. What differs is which things it has names for.

This is question two of the Name Test at work: each word in the first column names one particular institution, event, office or person, so it stands tall; the same word in the second column only says what kind of thing, so it stays small.

Three kinds of convention cover most of what you will meet.

What does not change is the core of the Name Test. Indian English still keeps seasons, kinds of things and compass directions small in plain prose. 'Heavy Monsoon rain' in a weather report is an error in Indian English as in any other: the season is not a name.

Picture the same word wearing two outfits. In its work clothes - an official uniform with a badge - it is the Centre, the Monsoon Session, the Budget, and the badge is the capital letter. At home in everyday clothes it is the centre of the room, the monsoon on the window, the budget for groceries, and it wears no badge at all. The word has not changed. What changed is whether it is on duty as the name of one institution, event or office.

This section builds on Practice S11 (languages and nationalities), Practice S13 (titles of people) and Craft S25 (offices and government titles), where 'the Prime Minister' for the office-holder was already standard in Indian and British usage. It follows S35, which showed that Devanagari has no capital letters: here you see what English does when it writes Indian names. S37 sets house styles side by side, and S38 shows why careful exam items never key these conventions wrong.

Here is the hard case: the same word, capitalised and not, in one sentence. The Monsoon Session of Parliament opened as the monsoon reached Delhi. A quick editor might 'fix' this in one of two ways - capitalise both, or lower both. Both fixes are wrong, and the Name Test shows why. Ask of each word: does it name one particular thing, or say what kind of thing? The Monsoon Session is one named sitting of Parliament. It has a start date, an agenda and a place in the official calendar. You could look it up. So Monsoon is part of a name and stands tall. The monsoon that reached Delhi is the season of rain. It comes every year, it has no official name, and it is a kind of weather. So it stays small, exactly as summer and winter do. The same contrast runs through Indian English. 'The Centre has written to the States' uses two names; 'the centre of the state' uses none. 'The Budget Session' is a name; 'the budget session of our society' is probably not, unless the society's own documents name it. When you cannot tell, ask whether the writer means one particular institution or event that a reader could look up. That question, not the word itself, decides the capital.

Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and Sanskrit, written in Devanagari, have no capital letters at all - and neither do Tamil, Telugu, Bengali or Gujarati scripts. So when a Hindi name such as लोक सभा is written in English letters, the capitals in Lok Sabha come entirely from English. The name had none of its own. A second surprise: 'the Centre' is so settled in Indian English that Indian newspapers rarely explain it, while a reader in Britain or America may not know that it means the Union government at all. A capital that is obvious in one country can be a puzzle in another - which is why a careful writer for an international reader adds a few words: 'the Centre (the Union government)'.

The conventions here are described from common Indian newspaper, government and school usage; individual publications have their own style sheets and differ in details - some write Gandhiji, some Gandhi ji; some write Smt. with a full stop and some Smt without. Full stops after short forms are outside this chapter's scope. The three named sessions of Parliament are the usual pattern, but Parliament can also hold special sessions. Names used in invented examples - Leela Menon, Anil Joshi, Kavita Menon and others - are fictional. R. K. Narayan and A. R. Rahman are real and are written as they write their names.

1. Run the Name Test on each word: one particular institution, event or office, or a kind of thing?
2. Capitalise Indian named institutions and events: the Centre, the States, the Union Budget, the Monsoon Session, the Lok Sabha.
3. Keep the ordinary senses small: the monsoon, a budget, the centre of town.
4. Put a capital on a title before a name - Shri, Smt., Dr - and keep a name as its owner writes it.
5. Choose one style for honorifics such as ji and keep it throughout.
6. For an international reader, gloss an Indian convention once; never correct it.

• The Centre has announced relief for farmers in Odisha.
• The Monsoon Session of Parliament begins in July, just as the monsoon peaks.
• Smt. Kavita Menon, the school's principal, opened the science fair.
• In London, the Chancellor presented the Budget to Parliament.
• In Birmingham, Grace watched the Prime Minister answer questions in the House of Commons.
• In Nairobi, Wanjiru followed the budget debate in the National Assembly.

• R. K. Narayan wrote about the town of Malgudi.
• The bill passed the Lok Sabha but stalled in the Rajya Sabha.
• Our history teacher always writes Gandhiji as one word.
• In Westminster, the Speaker called the House to order.
• Every autumn, Sarah's school in York holds a mock General Election.
• In Singapore, Mei Ling's school notice was signed by the Principal.

Style guides compared

Every guide agrees on the Name Test's first two questions. The disagreements begin where a house style decides.

So the Name Test's last step - where a house style decides, name the style and keep it - covers every cell in the right-hand column and none in the middle one.

Editors describe the two broad tendencies with two plain terms.

One title set in four styles shows the practical difference.

What never moves is the core. No guide writes 'monday', 'kerala' or 'i'. No guide capitalises 'the Doctor' for any doctor, or 'Summer' in a plain sentence about the weather. The guides argue only at the edges.

Picture a city with one main road and several neighbourhoods. The main road - sentence starts, I, names of people, places, days, months, languages - is the same for everyone, and every guide drives on it. The neighbourhoods are the house styles: Chicago Street, APA Lane, the AP newsroom, the British and Indian quarters. Each has its own local signs for titles, colons and offices. A good writer knows which neighbourhood a piece lives in, reads its signs, and never tells the next neighbourhood that its signs are wrong.

This section gathers house-style choices you met one at a time: Craft S21 (title case or sentence case), Craft S22 (headings), Craft S23 (a capital after a colon), Craft S25 (offices), and Craft S28 (acronyms such as NATO and Nato). It follows S33 (Internet or internet) and S36 (Indian English conventions). S38 turns the comparison into exam judgement: which cases a careful item can key, and which it must avoid.

Here is the hard case: a title that is right in one guide and wrong in another - in the same essay. A student writes an APA-style paper. In the text, the paper mentions a book: Rivers of the Deccan Plateau. In the reference list, the same book appears as: Rivers of the Deccan plateau. A quick reader sees two different capitalisations and circles one as an error. Both are right. APA uses title case for a book's title when it is mentioned in the body of a paper, and sentence case for the same title in the reference list. The capital on Deccan survives in both, because Deccan is a name; the capital on Plateau survives only in title case, because plateau alone is a kind of land. Now change the guide. In MLA style, the same book is in title case in the text and in the list of works cited. So a sentence-case title in an MLA works-cited list would be a slip against that guide - not because sentence case is wrong, but because MLA does not use it there. The lesson is exact: judge a capital against the guide the writer is following, and in the place where it appears. Without a named guide, a title in either case is standard. With one, the guide decides.

The best-known American guides do not agree on the word with. In APA style, a four-letter preposition in a title takes a capital: A Walk With the Elephants. In Chicago and MLA style, it stays small: A Walk with the Elephants. A student switching from a psychology essay to an English essay may need to change one letter in every title. A second surprise: many newspapers that print book titles in title case print their own headlines in sentence case. The same front page can hold both styles on purpose - one for the names of works, one for the paper's own headings.

This section states only features the guides have held for several editions: title case in Chicago and MLA; APA's four-letter rule and its sentence-case reference titles; AP's sentence-case headlines and four-letter rule for composition titles; APA and AP capitals after a colon before a full sentence; American lower case for an office used alone. British practice is described as a tendency of many publishers, not a single guide. Guides are revised, so check the current edition before a detail matters. Rivers of the Deccan Plateau and the Kabini title are invented examples.

1. Separate the core that every guide shares from the edges where guides differ.
2. Before judging a capital, ask which guide the writer is following and where the words appear.
3. Know the main differences: title or sentence case, short prepositions, colons, offices, short forms.
4. State a named guide's rule only when you are sure; otherwise say 'some styles'.
5. Choose one style for a piece and keep it for every title, heading and short form.
6. Never let a house style override a name: no style writes monday or kerala.

• A Walk With the Elephants of Kabini
• Rivers of the Deccan plateau
• The Prime Minister met the chief ministers of five states.
• The result was clear: every sample passed.
• The president spoke to reporters in Washington.
• In Lisbon, Inês read that Nato ministers had met in Brussels.

• Monsoon arrives early in Kerala, farmers relieved
• Principal Iyer spoke first; later the principal thanked the parents.
• Kiran's thesis cites ISRO reports and a UNESCO survey.
• One rule matters: Check the name.
• Oliver's essay cites A Walk with the Elephants of Kabini.
• In Cape Town, Thandi's newspaper prints every headline in sentence case.

Capitals under exam conditions

Every capital item fits one of a few shapes. Each has its own first check.

The scan is the Name Test in order: question one (sentence starts, I), question two (names of people, places, days, months, festivals, languages, works, brands), question three (kind words that should be small).

Here are the three trays, with what goes into each.

In timed writing, the register question is simpler than it looks. Capitals are not a matter of formality: an informal message still needs I, names and sentence starts. The one register choice is the family word - 'Mum' as a name is the school standard, 'mum' in a casual message is common - and in an exam answer the school standard is the safe choice. What loses marks is not a style; it is a slip: 'i', 'monday', 'delhi'.

Picture an examiner's desk with three trays. The first is red: every item dropped in it is wrong in any English - a small i, a lower-case Delhi, a Summer with a capital in a weather report. The second is amber, and it has a label slot: an item goes in only when the question has written a style's name on the label. The third is green: both-standard forms, Indian English conventions and names as their owners write them. A careful examiner marks only from the red tray, and from the amber tray when it is labelled. Your scan fills the trays; your answer comes from the red one.

This section draws the whole chapter into one routine. The scan uses the Name Test from Discover S8. Tray one gathers Discover S2-S7 and S9, and Practice S11-S14 and S17. Tray two gathers Craft S21-S23, S25 and S28 and Master S37. Tray three gathers Practice S19 (brands), Master S33, S34 and S36. After this fast work, S39 slows right down to read capitals in public-domain texts closely.

Here is the hard case: a choose-the-correct-version item where two versions look right. Choose the correct sentence. (a) The Principal said: The results are out. (b) The principal said the results were out. (c) The principal said the Results were out. (d) the principal said the results were out. Many learners freeze between (a) and (b). Run the trays. Version (c) gives Results a capital, though results is a kind of thing: tray one, out. Version (d) starts with a small letter: tray one, out. Version (a) has two edge cases - the Principal for the office alone, and a capital after a colon - and it also runs a quotation into a sentence without quotation marks, which is a punctuation fault. Version (b) has no edge case at all: it is standard in every style. So (b) is the safest key. Notice why: not because 'the Principal' is wrong - in a school's own notice it is standard - but because (b) is correct in every style, while (a) depends on choices the question never named and has a punctuation problem as well. The lesson is exact. When a question names no style, the right answer is usually the version that is correct in every style. A version that is right only in some styles is not wrong, but it is not the one a careful item keys.

The most common capital error in exam scripts is not a hard case at all. It is the small letter i, written alone as a pronoun - a habit carried over from phone messages. It appears in the middle of otherwise careful essays and costs marks every time. A second surprise: the safest answer to many capital items is to leave a word alone. iPhone, eBay, the Centre, the Prime Minister and The Hague are all standard as written, and every one of them tempts an anxious candidate to 'correct' it.

Item types are described generically, in the style of school board papers and common competitive tests; no real paper is quoted or reproduced, and every item here is original. Boards and teachers may set their own style for titles and offices; where one is set, follow it. The trays describe how careful items are written; a poorly written item may still key a both-standard form, and in that case answer the question as asked and raise the point with your teacher afterwards.

1. Read the stem first: does it name a style?
2. Scan in order: sentence starts and I, then names, then kind words wearing capitals.
3. Sort what you find into three trays; key only tray one, and tray two when the stem names a style.
4. Make the smallest correction - usually one letter.
5. Leave names and brands as their owners write them.
6. On the final read of any timed answer, check I, names, days, months and languages.

• My cousin from Pune speaks Marathi and English.
• Last Diwali, my aunt from Lucknow visited us.
• The Prime Minister spoke first, and the Centre replied later.
• I think the doctor told Rahul to rest until Friday.
• Emma bought a used iPhone on eBay.
• The court sits in The Hague, in the Netherlands.

• Dear Mrs Kapoor, I am writing about the Science Fair on Friday.
• Every July, the monsoon reaches Mumbai.
• Ask Mum if Eid is on Saturday this year.
• Our history teacher lives in the north of the city.
• Nato leaders met in Brussels on Tuesday.
• In Accra, Kwame wrote the essay in English and French.

Close reading capitals

When a published text capitalises a word that today's rules would keep small, the capital is evidence. Ask what it is doing.

This is the Name Test turned into a reading tool: when a capital falls on a word the test calls a kind of thing, ask what the writer gains by treating it as a name.

Four questions open almost any passage.

Personification is not only historical. A poet today can write 'When Monsoon knocks, the whole house opens its doors', and the capital turns a season into a visitor. The Name Test calls monsoon a kind of weather; the poem makes it a someone. Neither is wrong: the test describes plain prose, and the poem is choosing to step outside it.

Picture a line of text as a row of people in a crowd photograph. Most stand at ordinary height: the common nouns, verbs and small words. A name stands on a step - it is always a little taller. In an old text or a poem, the writer lifts certain ordinary people onto steps as well: Liberty, Happiness, Death. Close reading means noticing who has been lifted, who has been left standing on the ground beside them - like pursuit, or defence - and asking why the photographer arranged the crowd that way.

This section reads the chapter's rules backwards. S31 showed how capitals grew and how English writers once capitalised nouns freely; here that habit appears in the Declaration and the US Constitution. S32 treated full capitals as shouting online; here full capitals serve formal display in a constitution. Craft S29 and Practice S16 set out capitals for names and titles; here a poet gives a name's capital to Death. S40 asks you to use every rule and every reading on a text of your own.

Here is the hard case: one text, two capitals, one word. The second sentence of the Declaration of Independence speaks of 'certain unalienable Rights'. A few lines later, in the widely reproduced transcription of the text, the same sentence continues: 'That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men'. Rights, then rights. A reader who has decided that every capital in the Declaration is deliberate emphasis now has a problem: did the writers think rights less important the second time? A reader who has decided that every capital is meaningless habit has a different problem: why do Rights, Life, Liberty and Happiness all stand tall in one line while pursuit stays small? The careful reading holds both. Eighteenth-century writers and printers capitalised many common nouns, and they did not do it by a fixed rule, so the text is not perfectly consistent. That is a fact about the period. At the same time, the capitals that are there produce an effect a modern reader can describe: the named ideas look like pillars, set apart from ordinary words. So a strong essay sentence says: 'The capitals on Rights, Life, Liberty and Happiness reflect the printing habits of the period, but they also lift these ideas above the surrounding words; the later lower-case rights shows that the pattern was a habit rather than a rule.' It describes, it qualifies, and it never corrects.

The Preamble to the Constitution of India uses full capitals in a way few readers notice until they look. It opens 'WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA', sets JUSTICE, LIBERTY, EQUALITY and FRATERNITY in capitals, and closes by declaring that the people 'do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION'. On the page, the capitals form a skeleton you can read on its own: WE, THE PEOPLE ... JUSTICE ... LIBERTY ... EQUALITY ... FRATERNITY ... ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE. A second surprise: the US Constitution's Preamble capitalises Order, Union, Justice, Tranquility, Welfare, Blessings, Liberty and Posterity - but not defence, in 'the common defence'.

The Declaration of Independence (1776), the US Constitution (1787) and the Preamble to the Constitution of India (adopted 1949) are quoted as they appear in widely used official transcriptions; printed versions of older texts differ slightly in capitals and punctuation, so check the copy set for your course. The Preamble of India is quoted in its present form. Dickinson's capitals are described rather than quoted at length, because editions differ. Readings of effect are interpretations supported by the text, not claims about what the writers intended. The poems by Anika and Farah are invented for this section.

1. Copy the passage exactly, capitals included, from a named edition or official text.
2. Underline every capital the Name Test would not require today.
3. Check whether the same word appears elsewhere in the text with a different capital.
4. Ask what each capital does: period habit, emphasis, formal display or personification.
5. Say both things where both are true: the habit of the period, and the effect on the reader.
6. Describe published capitals; never correct them in a quotation.

• and to secure to all its citizens: JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
• assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
• When Monsoon knocks, the whole house opens its doors.
• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
• We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare,
• Jonas, a student in Hamburg, noticed that an old English letter capitalised Weather and Ship, much as German capitalises every noun today.

• WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
• and Silence sat beside me on the step
• Kabir's essay quoted 'JUSTICE, social, economic and political' exactly, capitals and all.
• Because I could not stop for Death
• That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men
• In a German sentence, Lukas writes der Hund with a capital H, because every German noun takes one.

Independent performance

Here are six lines from Tanvi's draft, each put through the Name Test and the Walkabout sheet.

Every decision is the Name Test and one question more: is it wrong in every style, a choice the Walkabout sheet decides, a name as its owner writes it, or already standard?

The four kinds of decision, with the smallest move for each.

Two traps sit in the draft on purpose. Mr Salim Baig, the guide, is a name with a title before it, so Mr and every part of the name stand tall; a careless editor who has just lowered 'our Principal' may lower Mr too. And the monsoon, a season, is already small; an editor who has just given Sunday a capital may be tempted to give monsoon one as well. Every word gets its own test.

Picture the draft on a desk with four trays in a row. The first tray is red: errors in every style, fixed with one letter each - sunday, charminar, urdu, i. The second is amber with the Walkabout sheet pinned to it: the heading, the colon, the principal, internet. The third is blue: names as their owners write them - iPhone, Karachi Bakery, Mr Salim Baig. The fourth is green: already standard - the monsoon, the arches. Only the red and amber trays go back to Tanvi with changes. The blue and green go back untouched, each with a note saying why.

This is the chapter's capstone. It draws on Discover S2-S9 (sentence starts, I, names, days, seasons, the Name Test), Practice S11, S14 and S19 (languages, directions, brands), Craft S22, S23, S25 and S30 (headings, colons, offices, and editing for a real reader), and Master S33 and S36-S38 (internet, Indian English, style guides, exam trays). Hyphenated titles and compounds are left for Chapter 19, Hyphens & Dashes.

Here is the hard case, and it sits in one sentence of the draft: Ms Rao, our Principal, wants the photos for the club's Internet page. There are three capitals after the first word: Rao, Principal, Internet. Each needs its own decision, and each has a different defence. Rao is part of a name with a title before it. It stands tall in every style. Keep. Principal comes after 'our' and after the name, not directly before it. The Walkabout sheet lowers an office unless it comes directly before a name. So the edit is 'our principal' - and the defence must name the sheet, because in a school's own notice 'the Principal' is a standard institutional style. It is not an error in every style; it is a choice this sheet makes. Internet is the same kind of decision. The sheet says internet in lower case. AP moved to lower case in 2016; other writers keep the capital. So the edit is 'internet', and the defence names the sheet. The finished sentence reads: 'Ms Rao, our principal, wants the photos for the club's internet page.' Three capitals examined, two lowered, one kept, and three different reasons. A good editor's note is short: 'principal and internet lowered to the Walkabout sheet; Rao kept, a name.'

The most important edit in the draft is one the editor does not make. Karachi Bakery is a well-known Hyderabad business, and its name contains a city from another country. An anxious editor might wonder whether the capitals, or even the name, need changing. They do not. A business keeps the name its owner gives it, capitals and all. A second surprise: the sheet lowers 'our Principal' but leaves 'Mr Salim Baig' untouched. Both are titles; the difference is position. A title directly before a name is part of how that person is named. An office used after 'our' only describes a job.

Walkabout, the Deccan Heritage Club, Tanvi Rao, Ms Rao, Mr Salim Baig, Kavya and the other people in the draft are invented. The Charminar, Laad Bazaar, Golconda Fort and Karachi Bakery are real places and a real business in Hyderabad, named as they are commonly written; the report makes no claims about their history. Ellie, Oliver and Yuki are invented visitors. The sheet's choices (sentence-case headings, lower case after a colon, internet, offices) are one standard set among several; another sheet could choose the other forms, and would be equally correct.

1. Read the style sheet, then the whole draft, before changing anything.
2. Run the Name Test on every capital and every word that could be a name.
3. Sort each decision: every-style error, sheet choice, name, or already standard.
4. Make the smallest change - usually one letter - and never reword to fix a capital.
5. Keep names, brands and places as their owners write them.
6. Write a one-line defence for every change and every keep, naming a rule or the sheet.

• Last Sunday, twenty of us met at the Charminar at six.
• Our guide, Mr Salim Baig, grew up in the lanes of Laad Bazaar.
• Kavya's iPhone photos of the arches were the best.
• Ellie, visiting from Leeds, compared the lanes to the Shambles in York.
• Oliver, a teacher visiting from Bath, said the lanes are busiest before the monsoon.
• Yuki, visiting from Osaka, read the Urdu signboards with Mr Baig's help.

• Mr Baig read the old signboards to us in Urdu.
• Ms Rao, our principal, wants the photos for the club's internet page.
• I am already planning the next walk, to Golconda Fort in December.
• Ellie wrote the email subject line as Photos from the heritage walk.
• Oliver says the best view of the Charminar is from the north side.
• Afterwards, Yuki bought biscuits at Karachi Bakery to take home to Osaka.