Capital letters are used:
(a) At the beginning of a sentence, that is, after a full stop, and a question mark, and also after an exclamation mark when it ends a complete sense, but not after an exclamation mark when it follows a single word or a phrase.
"That he should oppose me ! Who could dream of it."
But, "Alas ! my friend is no more."
(b) At the beginning of every line of poetry.
(c) To commence the first word of a direct speech :
He said, "You are right."
[ 🎉 But when a portion of the quoted sentence is continued after a break with new quotation-marks, the first word does not begin with a capital letter: "I have" said he, "never done you any wrong."]
(d) For all proper names and proper adjectives, titles etc.
India, Indian, Monday, July, Chowringhee Road.
NOTE: Verbs derived from proper nouns have a small letter: americanise, anglicise, pasteurise, etc.
(e) For Personified objects:
O Death ! where is thy sting?
(f) In forms of address in letters :
My dear Father, Dear Sir.
(g) For all nouns and pronouns referring to God:
On God ! we pray to Thee.
It is You Who made us.
Let us pray to the Almighty.
(h) To write the pronoun "I" and the interjection "O".
(i) In titles of distinction:
President Kennedy, Secretary of State for War.
NOTE: Words like headmaster, principal, king, etc. are written with a small letter except when we want to particularise:
The Principal of the College.
The King returned after a long time.
(j) For historical periods or important events:
The Age of Wordsworth, the Industrial Revolution.
(k) For abbreviations: M.A. ; U.S.S.R.
(l) For school subjects, only when they are languages :
English, Hindi.
But physics, mathematics, chemistry, etc.
NOTE: School subjects other than languages may start with a capital letter where the word is thought of as the name of a course in a curriculum or a subject in an examination:
A good knowledge of mathematics is essential to an engineer.
She is very interested in history.
But, she passed in History but failed in Mathematics. — FT Wood.
(m) For the words north, south, east and west ‘where they are the recognised or substitute name for a particular geographical region or area’:
His whole life was spent in the East.
But when these words merely indicate direction, small letters are used:
His house is to the east of the lake.
The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
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