capitalization

**kay hall** · 01-28-2011, 05:00 PM

I'm reading "shortcuts for the student writer" I'm not sure if they was suppose to have quotations but anyway I'm studing grammer too become a better writer and I have a question. In the book it saids "do capitalize subjects inschool whoes names come from names of countries; complete titles of courses
English Spanish History 101" I understood until it said.
"Do not capitalize subjects in school whose name do not come from the names of countries
History psychology marketing"
history is listed twice is suppose to be capitalized or not?

**Sam W** · 02-14-2011, 07:48 PM

History isn't capitalised unless it's at the start of a sentence. English is capitalised because it's a language. Likewise with Spanish, German, Dutch, Latin, etcetera. History is not a proper noun (i.e. a person, place, or thing) so it isn't.

By the way: It's 'grammar'.

**riverdog** · 02-14-2011, 09:36 PM

Let me see if I can decipher your grammatical short cut lesson.

"do capitalize subjects in school whoes (whose) names come from names of countries; complete titles of courses
English Spanish History 101"

I read this as capitalize courses English, and Spanish History 101. English is capitalized because, like SamW said, its a proper noun. Spanish History 101 is capitalized because it is the actual (proper name) of the class. You would also capitalize Engineering Technology 234, Microbiology 105, and Advanced Creative Writing 301.

Used in a sentence: Professor Garcia is teaching History 101 at ten in the morning.

However, when you're talking about the actual field of study, you do not capitalize.

Used in a sentence: My favorite subject in school is history.

Hope this helps.

**Chronopunk** · 02-14-2011, 11:41 PM

English, Spanish, History 101 (course title) are capitalized. In the sentence, "He was talking about history," the word history does not rate a capital H.

Punctuation is important too.