Page 35 - South Mountain Community College 2020-2021 Student Planner

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
Days of the week:
Monday, Saturday, Friday
Names of companies and sports teams:
Reebok, Red Sox, Microsoft, Adobe
The singular first person pronoun I: “I like to dance.”
Names of people:
Sean, Bobby, Samantha, Elizabeth, Olivia
The first word of a new sentence:
“Our computer was on the fritz.”
Months of the year:
January, March, September
Specific geographic regions:
Southeast Asia, Equatorial Africa, the Khyber Pass
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”
Add an -s to words that end in -ey or -ay:
EXAMPLES: “key” = “keys,” “foray” = “forays”
Some words that are borrowed from foreign languages require irregular spellings in order to make them plural:
EXAMPLES: “bacterium” = “bacteria,” “chateau” = “chateaux,” “alumnus” = “alumni”
Planets and other specific celestial objects:
Earth, Jupiter, Olympus Mons, Andromeda
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”
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