Capitalization

OBLIQUE/SLANT

1. It indicates alternatives:

Tea/coffee will be served.

Each candidate will be required to give a report on his/her research.

2. It indicates the limits of a period of time ( a short dash is possible):

I was at university in the years 1960/64.

in the years 1960-64

3. It also links items on a route or itinerary (short dashes are possible):

The London/Oxford/ Birmingham express was delayed.

the London-Oxford-Birmingham express

4. It also indicates an abbreviation:

Please quote your a/c number in all correspondence ('account').

5. It expresses rates or ratios in measurements:

100 hm/h

APOSTROPHE

1. Apostrophe can be used to indicate possession, with or without an extra s:

the child's toy

the children's clothes

James's ball

Robert Burns's letters

the boys' mothers

one’s home

The formation of the possessive case of monosyllabic names ending in ~s usually requires another s after an apostrophe (Mr, Jones's room) but with longer name many people let an apostrophe alone (Dickens' novels).

Greek names with more than one syllable are always written with an apostrophe alone when they end with an - s sound: (Socrates' teaching)

If an extra s sounds too clumsy to say, leave it out in writing (Moses' laws, Xerxes' army, the Mercedes' engine)

2. It is used to indicate that letters or numbers have been dropped to produce a shortened form:

I'd say so

she'll get you back we can't comment

sounds of the '60s

3. It is used to clarify some plurals, especially plurals of short words:

do's and don'ts

Dot your i's and cross your t's.

I can’t read the 7's very well - some of them look like l's.

Note that in dates both 's and s are permissible:

Were you around in the 60's?

It's been law since the 1930s.

But it shouldn’t be used with contractions (e.g. MP’s) because what is put in plural is not a noun.

4. It can be used with a defining plural:

e.g. Ten years' imprisonment

1. Capital letters are used in legal names:

Jimmy Garter

Tom Bradley

Names of pet animals (Lassie), cars (Pontiac, Ford), brands (Pepsi-Cola), institutions (the Fire Department), books and documents (Gone with the Wind, the Bill of Rights), works of art (the Thinker, The Ninth Symphony). All the words in the titles are capitalized except articles, conjunctions, and short prepositions. The first word of the title is always capitalized (The Dark Side of the Moon).

2. Capitalization is used when regular words are used as names:

Mother, Father, Mummy, Teddy, Slim, Red

We write "mother" for any woman having a child, but we write “Mother” as a name for my own mother. The same goes for "Uncle", "grandma", “Sis” and terms for other members of the family. But if these words are preceded by a, the, my, your, etc, we do not capitalize them. (My mother)

3. If a name is used after a title, the title is capitalized too:

Doctor Welby

President Bush

In formal speech a title is likely to be capitalized even when it's used without a person's name.

The President of the United States

The Mayor of the City of Chicago

4. Words for a specific group of people somewhere between names and titles can be capitalized:

The Democrats

5. Names of the places, particular buildings and businesses, names of the streets, highways, towns, cities, states, countries, continents and planets. If written in series, these names go from smallest to largest with commas in between:

Longman House, Harlow, Essex, England

Addresses are written from smallest to largest.

6. The names of the day of the week, months, holidays, historical periods, events, festivals.

Capitals are not used for:

- The seasons

- Compass points (north, west, south, east), unless it’s part of the name of the region (The West (for the western part of the USA), Northern Ireland, The Western Hemisphere)

- School subjects (history, biology), but languages need a capital (English, Arabic)

In the case with the words that are sometimes written with capitals and sometimes not the following advice is to be followed: Use a capital for a particular and a small letter for general:

I have said something about it in Chapter1; I shall have more to say in later chapters.

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