Uppercase letters meaning

Upper-case letters Definition & Meaning

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Capital letters. (Compare lower-case letters.)

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SHALL WE PLAY A "SHALL" VS. "SHOULD" CHALLENGE?

Should you take this quiz on “shall” versus “should”? It should prove to be a quick challenge!

Question 1 of 6

Which form is commonly used with other verbs to express intention?

Words nearby upper-case letters

upper bound, Upper Canada, Upper Canadian, Upper Carboniferous, uppercase, upper-case letters, upper chamber, Upper Chinook, upper class, upperclassman, upper crust

MORE ABOUT UPPER CASE LETTERS

What are

uppercase letters?

Uppercase letters are capital letters—the bigger, taller versions of letters (like W), as opposed to the smaller versions, which are called lowercase letters (like w).

Uppercase means the same thing as capital. Uppercase letters can also be called capitals.

Some uppercase letters are just larger, taller versions of their lowercase counterparts (like uppercase W and lowercase w or uppercase C and lowercase c), but in many cases the two versions of the letter take different forms altogether, such as uppercase A and lowercase a or uppercase B and lowercase b.

To capitalize a word is to make its first letter an uppercase letter. For example, to capitalize the word polish (which is here spelled with a lowercase p), you would write it with an uppercase P, as Polish.

The state of being capitalized or uppercase (or the process of making a letter an uppercase letter) is called capitalization, as in Please check your paper for proper punctuation and capitalization.

In English, uppercase letters are used at the beginning of words for a few different reasons. It is considered a standard rule of English to use an uppercase letter to start proper nouns (which are nouns that refer to specific people, places, or things—meaning one’s that have specific names), such as Jess, Mexico, and Nintendo. Using an uppercase letter at the start of a word can change the way the reader interprets its meaning, as in the case of polish (a verb meaning to make something shinier) and Polish (an adjective describing someone from Poland) or apple (the fruit) and Apple (the company).

We also use an uppercase letter for the first letter of the first word in a sentence. Sometimes, we use an uppercase letter for the first letter of each word in a title, as in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. This is sometimes called title case.

Some acronyms and abbreviations are written using all uppercase letters, such as NASA and U.S. A word written entirely in uppercase letters (like WHAT) is said to be written in caps or all caps.

Example: A lot of people don’t bother using uppercase letters in text messages unless they want to emphasize something.

Where does

uppercase letter come from?

The term uppercase letter has been used since at least the 1730s. The words uppercase and lowercase come from printing. The process of physically printing things with printing presses involved trays, called cases, that were divided into compartments for holding different kinds of type (blocks with letters on them). The upper case held capital letters and the lower case held what came to be known as lowercase letters.

It can be confusing to know whether or not to use an uppercase letter in certain situations, but a capitalization guide can help.

Did you know ... ?

What are some other forms related to uppercase letter?

upper-case letter (alternate hyphenated spelling)
upper case letter (alternate two-word spelling)

What are some synonyms for uppercase letter?

capital letter
capital
uppercase (when uppercase is used as a noun)

What are some words that share a root or word element with uppercase letter?

uppercase
lowercase
lowercase letter
letter

What are some words that often get used in discussing uppercase letter?

capitalize
capitalization
spelling
first
word
sentence
title

How are

uppercase letters used in real life?

Uppercase letters are used in the beginning of names and other proper nouns, at the beginning of sentences, at the beginning of words in titles, and in some abbreviations. In casual use, a word might be written in uppercase letters for emphasis.

She’s back with the classics and the riddles and the puzzles. The uppercase letters say APRIL NINTH. 👏🏻 @taylorswift13 You deserve this, so much. 💛 https://t.co/x7KsswdBPj

— anne⁰⁰ ఌ😺 (@ANNEtisocial) February 11, 2021

Identifying and matching uppercase and lowercase letters using these colorful underwater themed cards. Games make learning fun! 🐟 🐠 #IslipENL #LearningIsFun @WingElemIslip pic.twitter.com/QjUSLvuZ57

— Jaclyn Brady (@JaclynBrady17) February 5, 2021

i wonder if i’ll ever use uppercase letters for anything besides emphasis again

— h☼ (@hl_cutie) July 8, 2019

Try using

uppercase letters!

Which of the following kinds of words is often spelled with an uppercase letter at the beginning?

A. proper nouns
B. the first word in a sentence
C. the first word in a title
D. all of the above

How to use upper-case letters in a sentence

Certain features of its history suggest why this may be the case.
Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST
And, in the case of fluoride, at least, that doubt might actually be justified.
Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST
Her latest book, Heretic: The Case for a Muslim Reformation, will be published in April by HarperCollins.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Our Duty Is to Keep Charlie Hebdo Alive|Ayaan Hirsi Ali|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Their friendship began when Krauss, who was chairman of the physics department at Case Western in Cleveland, sought out Epstein.
Sleazy Billionaire’s Double Life Featured Beach Parties With Stephen Hawking|M.L. Nestel|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST

A grand juror in the Ferguson case is suing to be able to explain exactly what went down in the courtroom.
Politicians Only Love Journalists When They're Dead|Luke O’Neil|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST
“Perhaps you do not speak my language,” she said in Urdu, the tongue most frequently heard in Upper India.
The Red Year|Louis Tracy
The case was an assault and battery that came off between two men named Brown and Henderson.
The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun;|Various
In this case, I suspect, there was co-operant a strongly marked childish characteristic, the love of producing an effect.
Children's Ways|James Sully
On the upper part of the stem the whorls are very close together, but they are more widely separated at the lower portion.
How to Know the Ferns|S. Leonard Bastin
Sometimes in the case of large plants, cones have been known to occur on the tips of the branches of the Marsh Horsetail.
How to Know the Ferns|S. Leonard Bastin

Lowercase and Uppercase Letters: Definition and Meaning

The 26 letters in the English alphabet can take two forms: uppercase and lowercase. Each form serves a different function. Most of the letters you see in writing are lowercase.

Definition of Lowercase Letters

Lowercase letters are smaller and sometimes take a slightly different form than their uppercase counterparts.

Notice the L that starts the word Lowercase in the previous sentence. It’s larger than the other letters and looks different than the l in the word letters.

Lowercase letters are used more often than uppercase letters. They follow the first letter of a sentence or the first letter of a proper noun.

English Alphabet Lowercase Letters

These are the lowercase forms of each of the 26 letters in the English alphabet.

a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m
n	o	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z

Definition of Uppercase Letters

Uppercase letters, also called capital letters, are used to start sentences and as the initial letter of a proper noun.

Uppercase letters are larger than their lowercase counterparts. Though most uppercase letters look similar to their lowercase partners, others take slightly different forms.

English Alphabet Uppercase (Capital) Letters

These are the uppercase or capital forms of the 26 letters in the English alphabet.

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

When Should You Use Lowercase Letters?

It’s easier to explain the function of lowercase letters by saying what they don’t do. Lowercase letters do not start sentences and are not used as the initial letter of a proper noun.

They are used for all the remaining letters in sentences and following the first letter of proper nouns.

Most of the letters you write will be lowercase. A quick scan of this article shows that uppercase letters are used in specific circumstances and lowercase are used everywhere else!

In the first sentence of the paragraph above, Most of the letters you write will be lowercase., only the M in Most is an uppercase letter. All the others are lowercase.

Use Lowercase Letters with Common Nouns

Nouns are words that represent a person, place, thing, or idea. There are two types of nouns: common and proper.

Common nouns refer to a non-specific person, place, thing, or idea. They are generic terms. The chart below shows the common noun version of the proper nouns used above.

Proper noun (capitalize first letter)	Common noun (lowercase letters)
Joanna	person
London	city
France	country
Tuesday	weekday
September	month

Proper nouns refer to a specific person, place, thing, or idea. For example, the name of a particular person, city, country, day of the week, or month is a proper noun.

Joanna
London
France
Tuesday
September

The initial letter of a proper noun is an uppercase letter. The rest are lowercase.

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Sentence Examples with Proper and Common Nouns

These sentences contain both proper and common nouns (in bold). The proper nouns are capitalized, the common nouns contain only lowercase letters.

After work, Sue met friends for dinner.
The ancient poet Homer wrote The Odyssey and The Iliad.
My favorite day of the week is Sunday, and my favorite month is July.

When Should You Use Uppercase Letters?

Most often, capital letters are used to start sentences and proper nouns, but those aren’t the only times.

This list explains other circumstances that require uppercase letters.

1. The first word of a quote that’s part of a complete sentence

When an embedded quote is also a complete sentence, the first word of that quote should be capitalized.

Mary said, “We should go to the beach.”

2. Titles of literary or artistic works

Capitalize the first, last, and all other words in a title except conjunctions, articles, and prepositions of fewer than four letters. This is called “Title Case.” (Some style guides have even more specific guidelines, so always check!)

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Hunger Games
The Fault in Our Stars

3. Professional titles preceding a person’s name

When a title such as “Dr.” or “President” precedes a specific person’s name, capitalize it.

We will now hear from Dr. Jones, our keynote speaker.
President Biden will give a speech later today.

Use lowercase letters if the title is used as a description or not followed by a specific name.

The keynote speaker is Martin Jones, a doctor.
I’m watching the president give a speech.

If you feel overwhelmed by the different rules of capitalization, remember that ProWritingAid is here to help!

It’s a thorough grammar checker (and more) that will detect errors in capitalization for you.

4. The pronoun “I”

You should always capitalize the pronoun “I.”

5. Acronyms and Initialisms

An acronym is a word formed by taking the first letter of each word of a compound term. Initialisms are similar abbreviations, except that the letters are pronounced individually rather than forming a new word.

PIN is an acronym for personal identification number and is pronounced as the word “pin”
FBI is an initialism for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is pronounced as individual letters F-B-I

Some phrases are also abbreviated as initialisms:

“Talk to you later” is TTYL
“As soon as possible” is ASAP

Acronyms and initialisms should always appear in uppercase form.

6. When adding emphasis

Be careful with this use of uppercase letters!

When you put words or sentences in ALL CAPS, a practice often seen in texts or posts, you add emphasis to your words. Consider how that emphasis will be perceived.

ALL CAPS statements carry more aggression and intensity than lowercase words. That’s not always a bad thing.

For example, texting someone “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” instead of “Happy birthday” is a way to convey excitement and show you really mean those good wishes.

Other times, ALL CAPS can sound accusatory, demeaning, or rude.

Remember that ALL CAPS in writing makes it seem as though the speaker is yelling. Keep that in mind before you press “send” on your uppercase text or post!

A Summary of Lowercase and Uppercase Letters

Lowercase letters are used for common nouns and for every letter after the initial letter of the first word of a sentence.

Uppercase letters are most often used at the start of sentences and as the first letter of proper nouns, though there are other times to use the capital letter form too.

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CAPITAL LETTERS - what are they (large or small)? Example

Capital letters are uppercase letters that are larger than lowercase letters.

What are capital letters?

In Russian writing, letters differ in their graphic design: some are large, others are small or lower case. Large letters are often referred to as capital letters. As can be understood from this "speaking" name, they begin headings, that is, they indicate the beginning of

sentences
period
paragraphs
stanzas
someone else's speech, etc.

- By everyone is born for some work, - objected E. Hemingway and added:
- By everyone who walks the earth has his duties in life.

In an old style heals me.
E There is charm in ancient speech.
About is not like your words
and are more modern and sharper.

Bella Akhmadulina

Capital letters are a common name. In Russian, a special linguistic term is used - capital letters. Once upon a time, at the dawn of handwriting, they were really carefully written at the beginning of a line, and decorated in every possible way to distinguish them from other ordinary letters. Emphasizing the initial letter of the first word is the oldest writing technique that was used before the invention of printing. When typography appeared, the tradition of using capital letters at the beginning of a sentence and to highlight proper names survived.

Let's consider in detail the cases in which uppercase or lowercase letters are used in modern Russian.

The use of capital letters

Capital letters are used not only in headings, at the beginning of sentences, but also to highlight certain words found anywhere in written speech. These special words include
- proper names;
- items.
In Russian orthography, proper names must be written with a capital letter:

1. names, patronymics, surnames, pseudonyms, nicknames of people, names of gods, mythical creatures, fairy-tale and literary heroes
- Tanya, Vasilek, Andryushka;
- Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin;
- Gaius Julius Caesar;
- Vladimir Krasnoe Solnyshko;
- O'Henry (William Sidney Porter)
- Curly, Chernysh, Beetle, Top;
- Zeus, Hera, Apollo;
- Vasilisa the Beautiful, Cinderella, The Nutcracker.
2. animal names
- Tortilla turtle;
- cat Marquis;
- dog Oliver;
3. geographical names, except for generic words (krai, region, district, city, settlement, village, river, lake, mountain, sea, bay, etc.)
- Krasnodar Territory;
- Saratov region;
- City of Mosty;
- Veliky Ustyug;
- Sokol settlement;
- Ponizovye village;
- Volga river;
- Lake Seliger;
- Red Sea;
- Everest.
4. astronomical names
- Cygnus constellation;
- Solar Galaxy;
- Alpha Centauri.
The words "Earth", "Moon" and "Sun" as the names of celestial bodies are written with a capital letter and with a lowercase letter if they are used as common nouns. Compare:

Recently, astronomers have difficulty distinguishing spots on the Sun.

Rosehip stood with large flowers turned towards the sun, covered with many buds (K. G. Paustovsky).

Note that in proper names all words , their components, are capitalized , except for nouns denoting generic concepts and service words, for example:
- city of Rostov-on-Don;
- Ludwig van Beethoven;
- Vicomte de Bragelonne;
- Vasco da Gamma.
In this way, proper names differ from the names of organizations, institutions, industrial associations, architectural monuments, etc.

In titles, capitalize only the first word , for example:
- Socio-Political Research Foundation;
- Research Institute of Road Engineering;
- Main Department of Internal Affairs;
- House of scientists;
- Bronze Horseman.
The name may contain more capital letters if it contains a proper name, for example:
- Kristall Association;
- Information Telegraph Agency of Russia;
- Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory;
- Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
The capital letter is also used in pronouns you, you, your in documents, business letters when addressing one person politely.

English capital letters
English capital letters - Lingua-Airlines.ru
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or +7 (495) 646-00-76

In many languages of the world, letters are divided into uppercase and lowercase. Capital letters are larger than regular letters. In some languages they also differ in appearance: compare A and a. Generally, uppercase or lowercase letters are used at the beginning of sentences, in proper names, or to highlight words. But there are also many differences in the rules for the use of capital letters in different languages.

Russian rules for capital letters seem familiar and universal to us. When learning English, we often do not think about the fact that capital letters are used differently. In fact, there are many differences between English and Russian capital letters. If you want to write English correctly, pay attention to them and remember these discrepancies.

In English, capital letters are called capital letters. You can also find the names big letters or uppercase letters. Sometimes native speakers abbreviate this phrase to one word: the capital letter is simply a capital.

Things not to remember: the similarity of Russian and English capital letters
In the following situations, you will have no difficulty, since the same rules are used in Russian.
1. Each individual sentence is capitalized:
We need help.
1. A quotation or direct speech also begins with a capital letter. The only exception is if the quoted sentence or part of direct speech is interrupted by an insertion, then the ending is already written with a lowercase letter.
She screamed: “No!”

“We need help,” he said, “unless we die. ”
1. Capital letters are used in proper names. This is an extensive category of nouns, which includes names and nicknames of people, nicknames of animals, place names, names of organizations, trademarks, celestial bodies, sights, books, museums. A complete list of proper names can be found on Wikipedia (this is also a proper name), but as a rule, we can intuitively distinguish proper names from ordinary nouns.
Sarah, Greenpeace, London
1. Names of holidays and festivals:
Easter, New Year
1. The word God in the meaning of the one god in Christianity is written with a capital letter, like the Russian word God, although this is an optional requirement. But the pronouns that replace the word God are already written with a lowercase letter. Also, the names of other deities in other religions begin with capital letters - like any proper names.
Things to remember: differences between English and Russian capital letters
1. In English, the pronoun I is written with a capital letter. This is not a sign of the high self-esteem of the English and native English speakers, but a historical consequence: the lowercase letter i is very invisible in writing. At the same time, other forms of the pronoun are written with a lowercase letter: me, my. But you in English is written with a small letter, in contrast to the Russian polite you.
2. Ranks and titles in relation to specific people. It can be professional, scientific, religious, state, royal and other titles. A capital letter is required when referring to a person by rank or title, or if it is used in conjunction with a given name. However, in other cases, when such a word is used in general, it is written with a lowercase letter. Also, if the name comes after the rank, then a capital letter is also not required.
Happy birthday, Mr President!

I need to find Professor Johns.

I saw Queen Elizabeth.

How many kings and queens did England have?
1. Names of relatives or kinship terms when they refer to a specific person, such as when addressing or talking about a relative. But if mothers, grandparents are spoken of in general, then a capital letter is not needed. Also, a lowercase letter in the names of relatives is used if the word is preceded by a possessive pronoun or definition.
I miss you, dear Aunt!

When did you see Cousin Emma last time?

I never saw my cousins.
1. Names of days of the week and months. To remember, you can imagine that in English they are equated with proper names. But at the same time, the seasons, as in Russian, are written with lowercase letters.
Monday, April, January, summer
1. Nationalities and ethnicity are capitalized. This applies both to nations as such and to adjectives derived from them:
the Russians, Russian food, Japanese, African-American

Also in recent years there has been a tendency in English to write the word Black in the meaning of skin color with a capital letter: a Black man. For example, such a tradition was established by The New York Times and the Associated Press. At the same time, the word white in the meaning of "white-skinned" has not changed. For ordinary people, writing Black with a capital or small letter is a matter of choice.
1. Capital letters are used in the names of religions. Interestingly, this rule applies to most languages that have a distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters. But since in Russian we write "Buddhism", "Christianity", "Islam" without capital letters, special attention should be paid to this. Accordingly, words formed from the names of religions are also written in capital letters. By the way, the names of religious treatises are capitalized in both English and Russian.
Islam, Buddhism, Protestant church, the Bible

Capital letters in English names of several words
The last paragraph is devoted to the most unexpected rule for Russian people. It is quite complex, therefore it is placed in a separate section. Titles and headings in English are written with a capital letter - we have already found this out. But the fact is that native English speakers write ALL the words in the title or title in capital letters, and not just the first word, like in Russian. All nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, particles except for before the infinitive in the names are written with a capital letter. For example, the title of the book "Gone with the Wind" in English looks like Gone with the Wind.

Please note that auxiliary words are not considered: prepositions, particles to before the infinitive, articles, most conjunctions, short auxiliary verbs are written with small letters in the names. But if the union, auxiliary verb or preposition is long and consists of four letters or more, then a capital letter is also required: Without, Towards, Were. Pronouns are not included in this list: even a short it in the title requires a capital letter. Also, the list does not include the so-called subordinating conjunctions, even if they are short: as or if in the title is capitalized.

These seemingly simple rules are actually tricky.
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