ENGLISH
Rules of Capitalization
Here is a list of words that are typically capitalized in English:
Names of specific people, places,
and entities:
Chevrolet, George W. Bush, China,
Odysseus, Google, God
Street names and points of interest:
Main Street, Avenue de Champs-Elysées, the
Empire State Building
Proper adjectives:
Starbucks coffee, McDonalds
breakfast, Wendy’s chili
The singular first person pronoun
I
:
“I like to dance.”
The first word of a new sentence:
“Our computer was on the fritz.”
Planets and other specific celestial objects:
Earth, Jupiter, Olympus Mons, Andromeda
Days of the week:
Monday, Saturday, Friday
Names of people:
Sean, Bobby, Samantha, Elizabeth, Olivia
Months of the year:
January, March, September
Specific geographic regions:
Southeast Asia, Equatorial Africa, the Khyber Pass
Names of companies and
sports teams:
Reebok, Red Sox, Microsoft, Adobe
Rules of Pluralization
Here is a brief summary of pluralization rules in English:
Add -
s
to the singular of most nouns
to create a plural:
EXAMPLE: “bank” = “banks”
Add -
s
to words ending in -
eo
or -
io
:
EXAMPLES: “video” = “videos,”
“radio” = “radios”
Add -
es
to the singular of nouns
ending in -
s
, -
z
, -
x
, -
sh
, and -
ch:
EXAMPLES: “boss” = “bosses,”
“quiz” = “quizzes,” “mix” = “mixes,”
“brush” = “brushes,” “catch” =
“catches”
Some words that are borrowed from foreign
languages require irregular spellings in order
to make them plural:
EXAMPLES: “bacterium” = “bacteria,”
“chateau” = “chateaux,” “alumnus” = “alumni”
Change endings for words that end
in -
y
by replacing the
y
with an
i
and
adding -
es
:
EXAMPLES: “ferry” = “ferries,”
“carry” = “carries”
Some words ending in -
f
require replacing the
-
f
with -
ves
in order to make them plural:
EXAMPLES: “wife”= “wives,” “calf” = “calves,”
“elf” = “elves”
Add an -
s
to words that end in -
ey
or -
ay
:
EXAMPLES: “key” = “keys,”
“foray” = “forays”
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