[EDUCATOR] Capitalization.
The rules of capitalization in the English language
can seem overwhelming, but really there are only
three things that we capitalize, and those would be proper
nouns, titles and headings, and the first word in a
sentence and the pronoun I.
We're going to cover each one of these cases in a little
more detail, and the goal of this lesson is by the end of it,
you'll be much better at knowing when to capitalize letters
in the English language.
The first case of words that are always
capitalized are proper nouns.
A noun is a person, place, or a thing.
Proper nouns refer to specific people, places,
things, and brands.
We always capitalize proper nouns, and some examples of
proper nouns are Matthew, Chicago, and Kleenex.
Whenever these words appear in any sentence you're writing,
you should always capitalize the first letter of those words.
However, there are also common nouns.
Common nouns refer to general people, places, and things.
We never capitalize common nouns nouns unless they're
the first word in the sentence.
Here are some examples of common nouns, kid, city, tissue.
Now if you notice my examples for proper nouns and my examples
for common nouns align.
Matthew is the proper noun version of kid.
Chicago is a proper noun version of city.
And Kleenex is a proper noun version of the
common noun tissue.
Notice Matthew, Chicago, and Kleenex are always
capitalized because they're proper nouns, and kid, city,
and tissue are never capitalized unless they are the first
word in a new sentence.
Since understanding proper nouns is essential to capitalization,
we're going to stop right here and do a quick practice.
What I'm going to do is show you a noun.
You will, either on a separate sheet of paper or in your head
right now decide whether each is a common or proper noun.
If you know that the noun is proper,
I would like you to find a common noun
version of that proper noun.
And if the word word is a common noun,
I'd like you to find a proper noun version
of that common noun.
Let's try it out.
Eiffel Tower.
Is Eiffel Tower a common noun or a proper noun?
If it's a common noun, think of the proper noun version.
If it's a proper noun, think of the common noun version.
Teacher.
Again, decide whether it's a common or proper noun.
If it's a common noun, think of a proper noun
version of teacher, and if it's a proper noun,
think of a common noun version of teacher.
Car.
Africa.
If I'm moving too quickly, feel free to pause this video.
Language.
Okay, I'm going to show you the answers that I got.
Your answers are quite likely to be different
than the ones I thought of, but the answers I came up
with should give you some guidance as to whether you're
on the right track or not.
Eiffel Tower.
Eiffel Tower is a proper noun.
The common noun version I thought of was monument.
You might have also came up with landmark, or sculpture, or some
other common noun version of Eiffel Tower, the proper noun.
Teacher.
Teacher is a common noun and I chose Mr.
Morton to represent the proper noun version of
the common noun teacher.
Car.
Car is a common noun.
I chose Ford Escort, my first car to represent
the proper noun version of the common noun car.
Africa.
Africa is a proper noun.
Continent is the the common noun version
that I chose to represent the proper noun Africa.
Language.
Language is a common noun, and I chose English as the
proper noun representative of the common noun language.
We always capitalize proper nouns no matter where they
appear in the sentence.
This is the first case of things that we always capitalize in
the English language.
The second case is titles and headings.
We always capitalize words in title or heading, except we
don't capitalize little words.
By little words, I'm talking about
articles like the, a, or an,
conjunctions like and or but,
or prepositions like in, with.
We don't capitalize those words when they appear in a title,
unless they are the first word in the title.
Here are some examples of how we capitalize titles and headings.
We read Lord of the Flies.
Lord of the Flies, the title of a book.
As a title, we always
capitalize Lord of the Flies.
But you will notice the words of and the are not capitalized.
The reason why we don't capitalize of and the in
this title is because they are little words.
Of is being used as a preposition and
the is an article, so we don't capitalize
those in this title.
I listened to The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart.
Here we have the title of a song.
As with titles of novels or shows or movies,
we capitalize every word in the title.
Again, as with Lord of the Flies, we do not
capitalize the word of because it's a little word,
but we do capitalize the word the in this case,
and that's because it's the first word in the title.
Like when we start a sentence, when we start a title, we always
capitalize the first word, even if it's a little word.
And here's one more example of capitalizing the first letter
of all the words in a title.
Many presidents have met with Prime Minister May.
Here, we're not talking about the title of a book,
or the title of the song, but rather a professional title,
the title that a person holds.
And when we're giving that title to a specific person
and it's attached to that person's name, we capitalize
every word of that title.
That is why Prime Minister May is capitalized.
However, if you look at the word presidents,
presidents here is being used as a common noun,
a general group of presidents, not a specific or proper noun.
If we were referring to President Lincoln,
for example, we would always capitalize the word president,
because it's used as a title attached to a person's name.
One thing to consider when you're capitalizing titles
that can be complicated is class titles or titles of courses.
We're talking about specific course titles.
Knowing when and which words to capitalize on the title of a
class can be really complicated.
But again, it sort of just points back to our first rule
about capitalizing proper nouns.
So when we have a specific course title,
that's a proper noun.
Here are some examples where we capitalize course titles because
they refer to specific courses.
I am in Earth Science 101.
Here we capitalize both the E in Earth and the S in science.
And the reason we do this is because we're referring
to a specific course called Earth Science 101.
I take Algebra 1 and English Literature 2.
In this sentence, we see the words
algebra, English, and literature
all capitalized.
And the reason why we capitalized all of these
words is because they are the titles of specific
courses, proper nouns, which are always capitalized.
We also have general course titles,
and those are common nouns.
Here are some examples of course titles being
used as common nouns.
I like Earth science.
Here we do not capitalize the S in science.
The reason why is because science is a common noun.
We never capitalize the word science unless it appears as
the first word in a sentence or is attached to a course
title and refers to a specific course as a proper noun.
However, the E in Earth is always capitalized.
Any time we use the word Earth, even as an adjective,
such as here describing a type of science, we always capitalize
Earth, because Earth is a proper noun, even in adjective form.
I like English literature more than algebra.
We do not capitalize the words literature or
algebra because they are common nouns, but we still
capitalize the word English.
Though it is being used as an adjective to describe
the type of literature, we always capitalize the
names of countries or languages no matter where or how they
are used, because they are rooted in a proper noun.
We capitalize proper nouns everywhere.
So far we have talked about two cases where
you capitalize words.
Those would be, number 1, proper nouns, always capitalized,
and number 2, titles.
Whether it's the title of a book, class,
or professional title, we capitalize every word in the
title unless it's a little word.
We still have one more case of capitalization to look at, and
that would be first word and I.
We always capitalize the first word in a sentence
and the pronoun I.
You probably already know this, but since we're
covering capitalization, let's take a look at it.
We left.
Since we is beginning the sentence, we capitalize it.
Then Tim said, do you get it?
In this sentence, we have three capitalizations.
First, we have the word then, which is capitalized because
it's starting the sentence.
Next, we have the word Tim, which is capitalized because
it's a proper noun.
But thirdly, we have the word
do, which is also capitalized because
it's starting a sentence.
So well, it seems like a continuation of the first
part of the sentence, it's actually treated
as a whole new sentence.
So we capitalize the first letter in any dialogue
the moment it begins.
So I said, yes, I get it.
So here you see we're not only capitalizing so and yes,
because they are words that are beginning sentences,
we also see that we are capitalizing the pronoun
I every time we use it no matter where in the
sentence it appears.
In review, capitalization rules in the English language can be
explained in very complicated ways, but really there are only
three cases where we capitalize.
We capitalize these things, proper nouns,
including brand names, are always capitalized.
Titles and headings, except little words
are always capitalized.
And the first word in a sentence and the pronoun
I are always capitalized.
Okay, that's all the instruction I'm going
to offer you for today, but I do have a short
practice activity if you'd like to review
what you've learned.
You can complete this activity on your own with a piece
of paper or in your head, we'll cover the answers,
or if you're doing this with your teacher, just do
whatever your teacher says.
Now here's some practice problems to help you
review capitalization.
Here's what I want you to do.
I'm going to show you sentences.
You will write down the sentences and while you are
doing so, you will correctly capitalize each sentence.
While you are doing so, you will also write a letter under
each capitalization you make.
Put the letter A if it's a proper noun.
Put the letter B if you're capitalizing the word because
it's a word in a title, or put the letter C if you're making
the capitalization because it's the first word in a
sentence or the pronoun I.
So again, write the sentences down, fix the capitalization
while you write them down, and then note why you are
capitalizing, either because it's a proper
noun, a word in a title, or the first word in a sentence
with the pronoun I. Let's begin.
Tom ran to the Harold Washington Library.
You may want to pause these examples if I'm
not giving you enough time.
He met with Chief Librarian Roberts,
the woman who ran the whole library.
Tom was good at math, but was getting a low grade
in his Reading 101 course.
Get ready for a curveball.
The Chief Librarian helped Tom research Apple
iPhones for his report.
Ooooooooh!
Apple iPhones!
How do you capitalize that?
Why do you capitalize it like that?
And lastly, Tom said, 'Thanks for the help
with my reading class.'
Okay, let's look at some answers.
Tom ran to the Harold Washington Library.
In this sentence, we capitalize Tom
not only because it's the first word in
the sentence, but also because it's a proper noun.
We also capitalize Harold Washington Library
because Harold Washington Library is a proper noun.
It refers to a specific library, and library would be the common
noun version of Harold Washington Library.
He met with Chief Librarian Roberts.
Here we capitalize the word he because it's the
first word in a sentence, but we also capitalize
Chief Librarian Roberts.
We capitalize Roberts as a proper noun because
that's a person's name, but we also capitalize Chief
Librarian because it's attached to Roberts as part of her title.
Tom was good at math but was getting a low grade
in his reading 101 course.
Again we capitalize Tom as a proper noun and the
first word in the sentence.
I also capitalize Reading 101.
And the reason why I do this is because it's a proper noun.
It's the title of a specific course.
Had you put A or B there, that would have been fine for me.
Continuing on.
The chief librarian helped Tom research Apple
iPhones for his report.
This one was a little bit trickier.
It's kind of fun thinking about.
So we capitalize the word the as the first word in the sentence,
and we should capitalize the word Tom and Apple.
I see I did neither.
I'm going to have to work on that.
But yeah, Tom and Apple should both be capitalized.
I'm not about to go re-record this whole
thing because I didn't capitalize those two words.
But know that yours should be capitalized unlike mine
because Tom is a proper noun and Apple is also a proper noun,
brand name, name of a company.
The word iPhones we spell in that way because that's
how they say it's spelled.
It's their product.
They can break all the conventions of English
language and spell it however they want as
they have done here, and we just sort of
have to respect that.
So well, you should spell iPhones with a i and a P,
the only reason we do that is because we respect that company.
They determine how to spell the name of their product.
Lastly, Tom said, 'Thanks for the help
with my reading class.'
And here we see we capitalize Tom, not only as a proper noun,
but the first word of the sentence.
We also capitalize thanks, because while it seems like
a continuation of Tom said, that's actually treated
as a whole new sentence.
Thanks for following along with me today.
Take a look at that link in the description of this video.
That's going to lead you right to my website where
I got a bunch of great free resources on capitalization.
That includes worksheets, PowerPoint lessons,
online tests, paper tests.
You're going to love it.
Click on through, stop by.
Thanks for listening to me today.