Colon, Dashes and Hyphens in English

Every letter within the English alphabet can be used either as a capital letter (ABC) or as lower case letters (abc). In the English language, we don’t use capital letters that often. The main use for capital letters is for the first letter that starts a sentence, names of people and places, months and days, and certain abbreviations. However, the letter ‘i’ when used as a first person pronoun, is shown as a capital letter (I). You will not see any text, either on the Internet or in print, which consists of all capital letters. The main reason for this is that it makes the text extremely difficult to read. Some legal documents are written in capital letters rather than lower case, but this is the exception to the rule. When To Use Capital Letters Always use a capital letter for the first person personal pronoun, ‘I’. “What do I need to do?” Always use a capital letter to start a sentence. “He jumped down.” Always use a capital letter when beginning speech. Even if it is in the middle of a sentence, a capital letter is required. “I went to speak to him yesterday and he said, “Go away. Related on How To Learn English... Colon, Dashes and Hyphens in English Quotation Marks and Apostrophes in English Language A Look at Commas and Semi Colons When using abbreviations, capital letters will be used; the same goes for any acronyms. NASA GMT NATO The first letter of any days, public holidays and months need to be in capital letters. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday January, February, March, April and so on Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and so on When writing the name of a country, religion, place, language and nationality, the first letter should always be a capital letter. English French Great Britain France Christianity All names of people past and present should be capitalised. If a person has a title, this should also be capitalised. Dr Jones King Arthur Mrs S Vesey All companies, trademarks, organisations and corporations should have the first letter of each word capitalised. Apple Microsoft Coca Cola Oxfam British Heart Foundation If something such as a ship, train or other objects has an actual name, this should start with a capital letter. The Titanic The Flying Scotsman The Orient Express Why Do Some People Struggle With Capital Letters? When children first learn the English alphabet, they learn it in lower case. This can make it difficult for native children to recognise the shapes of the letters when in their capital form. Another reason why people may find capital letters difficult is that all the letters are the same size. It can be easy to learn lower case letters as they have different shapes and sizes. Recognising Words By Shape With regards to the English language, we recognise words by the shape the word makes. We don’t actually read each letter individually when we read, but instead we read the shape of the word. Look at the word English written in lower case; then look at the word ENGLISH written in capital letters. It is much easier to read, and to recognise, the first example rather than the one full of capital letters.