Unit 9.1

Uppercase letters

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Introduction

Uppercase letters are used in diverse contexts. Most of the times under the capitalisation process, which is the action of writing the first letter of a word in capital letters and the remaining part in lowercase letters.

Form

Capital letters are used with particular types of nouns, in certain positions in sentences, and with some adjectives.

Below you can read the alphabet in uppercase:

A E I M Q U Y
B F J N R V Z
C G K O S W
D H L P T X

Example

  • At the beginning of a sentence:
    • After the game…
    • Children are noisy.
    • He wants a chocolate.
  • Words starting with a digraph:
    • Shall I?
    • Chill out!
    • They are my cousins.
  • The personal pronoun I:
    • Yesterday, I went to the park.
    • He isn’t like I am.
    • What can I say?
  • Abbreviations and acronyms:
    • RAM; TV; USA.
  • In cover titles:
    • GRAMMAR
    • ENGLISH B2 HANDBOOK
    • MATHS
  • Proper nouns:
    • Names:
      • Mary and John are students.
      • Maria, Bob and Tom are friends.
      • My teacher is called Jane.
    • Surnames
      • Smith; Johnson; Williams.
    • Languages
      • Greek; Italian; Valencian.
    • Nationalities
      • American; Spanish; Vietnamese.
    •  Newspapers
      • the Guardian; the Wall Street Journal; the New York Times.
    •  Awards
      • the Academy Awards; the Golden Globe Awards; Grammy Award.

Use

Capital letters in the first letter of a word can be used:

  • In the first word of a document, regardless if the word starts with a digraph
  • In the first word after a period, which will be the first letter of a sentence;
  • Always for the personal pronoun “I”, regardless of its position;
  • In abbreviations and acronyms: all the letters are capitalised, not only the first one;
  • In the titles of covers;
  • For proper nouns:
    • Names
    • Surnames
    • Languages
    • Nationalities
    • Newspapers
    • Awards

Related

In English, besides Uppercase letters, we have Lowercase letters and Small caps.

Exercises

External link to Uppercase letters exercises (1170).



More exercises

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