sample from HTML program and PDF book
1. Names are always given capital letters when they are:
| proper nouns | James Smith |
| particular places | Europe, East Anglia |
| days of the week | Wednesday, Friday |
| months of the year | June, November |
| public festivals | Easter, Christmas |
| organisations | British Broadcasting Corporation |
| institutions | House of Commons |
| titles | Archbishop of Canterbury |
2. Capital letters are not necessary when a noun is being used in its general rather than its particular sense:
Manchester University / a university education
the King of France / kings and queens of Spain
3. Names which are formed from adjectival use of nouns do not take capital letters:
french doors indian ink roman numerals
4. The plurals of most names are formed by the addition of s
the Andersons the Joyces the Frys
5. Where the name ends in s, ch, or sh the plural is
formed by adding es:
the Rosses the Marshes the Finches
6. The following example, taken from The Guardian of 15 October 1991, combines the names of the Prime Minister, two political parties, an institution, and an organisation:
The Tories yesterday raised the stakes in the continuing battle over the credibility of John Major’s National Health Service assurances when they accused Labour of twisting statistics and the English language to sustain its claim that Mr Major is engineering a “creeping privatisation” of the service.
7. Capital letters are also used for the names of:
| public thoroughfares | Bois de Boulogne |
| civic holidays | Christmas Day |
| geographical names | Straight of Gibraltar |
| important events | World War II |
| trade names | Xerox, Jaguar, Kleenex |
8. Where an English form of a foreign place-name exists, it should be used:
Dunkirk Moscow Munich Naples Venice
© Roy Johnson 2003
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