![]() The phrase capital city utilizes capital because it refers to a city, not to a building or group of buildings.Ĭapitol with a capital "C" refers to the particular building in Washington, D.C. ![]() This means that in a state's capital city is a building or group of buildings properly referred to with the word capitol, with an "o." In this use capitol is synonymous with statehouse: both refer to the building or group of buildings where a state legislature meets. For all other meanings, the word you want is capital. It appears in the term Capitol Hill, and is used to refer to one very particular and famous building, to some other similar buildings, and, occasionally, to a group of buildings that includes those similar buildings. The key is this: capitol, the one with an "o," is very limited in use. What a pair these are: they sound identical and look nearly identical and both have meanings that relate to government. As a general rule of thumb, think of important words as deserving of capitalization.Capital and Capitol: Which One to Use Where If not treated as a complete sentence, it would be written as such: If treated as a complete sentence, the following title would be written as such: In this case, words like the, a, and, with, but, etc., are not capitalized within these titles. Or you would capitalize all the words except articles, prepositions and conjunctions (unless they’re the first word in the title). Generally, when dealing with a headline or article title, you can either treat it as a sentence, in which case you would treat it with all the proper punctuation. It’s the title of something, therefore, all letters should be capitalized - right? But what if the title is a complete sentence? Do the same rules apply? Perhaps the most confusing usage of capital letters is within article titles and headlines. ![]() Titles of books, movies, songs and such are also always capitalized - as are languages: The English language is full of many confusing nuances. Titles like these are capitalized no matter where they appear in a sentence. Everest, the Atlantic Ocean, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the University of London. The names of cities, states, countries and continents are also musts for capitalizing.įor example: Mt. Or you can say they read many books while attending the University of Toronto.Īnother instance in which to always capitalize is for geographic formations like mountains, volcanoes, bodies of water, buildings, bridges, streets and academic institutions. You can say someone read many books while attending university. See how that works? The same principle applies to the word university, for example. If used specifically to describe someone like President Bill Clinton, both the title and the name are capitalized. For example, if you were to use the word president on its own, it would be lower case. Most essentially, capitals are used in proper nouns and titles (words that describe specific entities). ![]() So here are the right times to use capital letters. For the sake of consistency, you should be aware of the right ways to capitalize. However, there are instances where people use them that aren’t always correct. Places like the start of a sentence and people’s names are no-brainers. For the most part, distinguishing between when it’s appropriate to use capital letters is pretty straightforward.
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