What are the Capital Letters?
Capital letters are the upper-case alphabets of English which are present with our 26 letters. The capital letters are generally more in height than the small letters.
We can easily differentiate upper-case alphabets and lower-case alphabets by just looking at them.
The capital letters look like – A, B, C, D…. Z
The small letter looks like – a, b, c, d…...z
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This picture above is clearly showing the difference between capital letters and small letters.
Uses and Examples of Capital Letters
From the first day of starting our journey in the world of education, we start with the learning of alphabets. As time goes by, we learn about what are capital letters, and where do we use capital letters? We learn to differentiate it properly.
We have always learned that whenever we write our name, we keep the first letter of our name capital always. It is the most basic and important rule towards capitalization.
For example,
Suppose there is a guy whose name is Vedant.
We are not supposed to write his name as vedant. We can properly see that there is no change in the spelling of the name, but the first letter of the name is in a small letter which is an incorrect way of writing anyone’s name. Proper capitalizing always plays an important role in the English subject.
The correct way of writing the name is to write the first letter as a capital letter even in between of any sentences. We always write the first letter of the name as a capital letter.
For example,
There is a boy named Vedant who likes to play football and cricket both.
There is a boy named vedant who likes to play football and cricket both.
From sentences 1 and 2 we can see that sentence 1 has written the first letter of the name as capital while in sentence 2 we can see that the first letter of the name is small.
So, which one is the correct form?
The first sentence present in the example is the correct form of writing a person’s name.
Always remember to write the first letter of the name as a capital letter.
Some Rules to use Capital Letters
1. If we write anyone’s name or city the first letter needs to be always in capital letters.
2. Even when you are using anyone’s name or place in between sentences.
For example,
Sheela is a good girl
My favourite dancer is Sheela.
Paris is my favourite destination to visit.
Sheela lives in Paris.
All the sentences give you a clear image of the writing name and place the first letter as capital.
3. Whenever we start a sentence the first letter should always be in capital letters. We never start a sentence with a small letter. It’s an important rule for capitalizing letters.
Example-
The bridge is broken for many years.
What is your name?
This is a beautiful present.
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4. If we write a sentence that is quoted under quotation. The first letter of the quoted sentence should always be a capital letter.
Example,
Mr. Roy, who is an English professor, has complimented me as “You are a brilliant student”.
In the above example, we have written the first letter of the quoted sentence in capital letter and it should be done always whenever we are quoting any sentences.
5. We always write the large letter of titles of Books or Movies in capital letters. But we do not write any word in a capital letter which has of, they, etc if they are present between the titles.
A Suitable Boy (We generally don’t write the word ‘A’ as a capital letter if it’s present in between any title but because the word ‘A’ is used as the first word we write it in capital letter.)
War of the Arrows (We generally don’t write the first word “of” and “the” in capital letters if they are present in between sentences but like in life there are some exceptions even in the rules of capital letters)
6. If any word is derived from proper nouns, we write that particular word in capital letters.
Example,
My favourite subject to read in English, science is my most hated subject.
In the above sentence, we wrote the first word of English as a capital letter because it’s derived from England whereas science‘s first word is a small letter because it’s not a derived proper noun.
FAQs on Capital Letters
1. How and When to Use Capital Letters?
Ans: To know how and when to use capital letters we should always keep the rules of capitalization in our mind.
Like, whenever we write a sentence the first letter of the starting sentence should always be written in capital letters. Whenever we use the letter I as the solo word we write the I in capital letters. Whenever we write nouns and proper nouns in between or at the starting of the sentence the first word should be in capital letters. The first letter of the words which are derived from proper nouns should be in capital letters. Even if we write a thought in the quotation the first word should be in capital letters always. All the capital letters rules are important to memorize when to use and where to use capital letters as per the requirements.
2. Does Punctuation Play an Important Role in Writing Capital Letters?
Ans: Yes, punctuation always plays an important role in writing capital letters as the punctuation gives the sentences a proper structure and a proper way to help you to understand the sentences. We can say punctuation forms the base of a sentence.
For example,
When we use a full stop at the end of the sentences we write the first letter of the starting word after the full stop in capital letters while when we use the comma as our punctuation we don’t write the starting letter of that first word after the comma as capital letters it should be written in lower-case letters.
