Common Symbols, Simple Capitalisation Guide

Common Symbols
Symbol Word (common term in brackets)
. full stop
, comma
? question mark
! exclamation mark
: colon
; semi-colon
- hyphen (dash)
& ampersand
/ virgule (forward slash)
\ reversed virgule (backward slash)
@ at
# hash
£ pound symbol
€ euro symbol
$ dollar symbol
' apostrophe
~ tilde
* asterisk

Simple Capitalisation Guide

When spelling a word for someone it is sometimes necessary to let the person know when letters need to be written in CAPITALS and when they need to be written small. There's a guide to capitalisation here.

"How do you spell UNESCO please?"      "Capital U-N-E-S-C-O."

"How do you spell T-Online please?"      "Capital T dash capital O small n-l-i-n-e."

"How do you spell 1&1 Profi please?"     "The number one then an ampersand another one, followed by capital P small r-o-f-i."

Capital letters are used for two main purposes in English:

    to show the beginning of a sentence

    to show that a noun is a proper noun.

    The first letter of every new sentence is capitalised.

    For example:-

    The postman delivered the parcel. It was very heavy.

    The pronoun I is always capitalised.

    For example:-

    My name is Lynne, I am a teacher.

    Proper nouns ( also called proper names) are the words which name specific people, organisations or places. They always start with a capital letter.

For example:-

Each part of a person's name is a proper noun:-

Lynne Hand - Elizabeth Helen Ruth Jones ...

The names of companies, organisations, newspapers or trade marks:-

Microsoft - Rolls Royce - the Round Table - the Times - WWW

Given or pet names of animals:-

Lassie - Champion - Trigger - Skippy - Sam

The names of cities and countries and words derived from those proper nouns such as languages:-

Paris - London - New York - England - English - French

Geographical and Celestial Names:-

the Red Sea - Alpha Centauri - Mars - the River Thames

Particular places such as streets, monuments, buildings, meeting rooms:-

Manvers Road (the road), the Taj Mahal - the Eiffel Tower (the tower) - Room 222 (the room)

Historical events, documents, acts, and specific periods of time:-

the Civil War - the Declaration of Independence - the Freedom of Information Act - World War I -

Months, days of the week, holidays and special days:-

December - Monday - Christmas - Valentine's Day (note seasons are not capitalised spring - summer - autumn - winter)

Religions, deities, scriptures:-

Christ - God - Jehovah - Mohammed - Christianity - Islam - Judaism - the Bible - the Koran - the Torah

Awards, vehicles, vehicle models and names, brand names:-

the Nobel Peace Prize - the Scout Movement - Ford Focus - the Bismarck - Kleenex - Hoover

!Note - You don't need to capitalise the name of any currency in English.

´               acute accent

`               grave accent

"              quotation mark

( )            left / right parentheses

[]             left / right square bracket

{}             left / right brace

< >          left / right angle bracket