Overview
The use of capital (“big”) letters in English is generally similar to in other Germanic and Romance languages with a few exceptions. The following list shows when you should use a capital letter. Of course, for artistic or political reasons capitalization may be ignored.
Meaningful Capitalization
Sometimes both – capitalized and not capitalized – are valid. For example, the unit for electric current intensity is ampere is named after French physicist Ampere. The capitalized variant of several nouns refer to one unique, exceptional instance of the named object. For example capitalized Moon refers to the moon orbiting Earth, whereas moon refers to any moon, incl. Earth’s moon. However, the non‐capitalized variant is widely accepted, too. The use of the definite article the already conveys a definite instance is meant.
Discretionary Capitalization
In headings the first word is always capitalized. However, for subsequent words two styles exist: * capitalize words in headings only if any obligatory capitalization applies * capitalize all words except words of less importance such as articles or prepositions, example English in Use Especially British English texts occasionally employ capitalization as a means of emphasis. This is not meant as a recommendation: If you are a beginner, master the obligatory capitalization first. You may still come across words being capitalized although no rule applies. For this you need to know that some authors capitalize for emphasis, not because there was any rule.
Stylization
The use of medial capitals – those in the middle of words – is generally considered poor English, although this is quite common on the internet and in advertisements. It is not necessary to capitalize styles of music (e. g. indie), adjectives, or the name of companies if they themselves do not use a capital letter (e. g. eBay) although the first letter will sometimes be capitalized on the internet due to technical reasons.