Here’s an example I saw on Facebook today:
Kinda busy celebrating my 20th Wedding Anniversary with my dear husband.
Notice that “Wedding Anniversary” is capitalized? I see examples of this fairly often; in fact, capitalization is one of the writing mistakes I correct most frequently.
Here’s the thing: you should capitalize words in basically only 3 situations:
- Proper nouns (like Canada, Jane, and Saskatchewan)
- First word in a sentence
- Main words in a title
I’m not sure why some people feel it necessary to capitalize words beyond this.
Back to my example. “Wedding Anniversary” is not a proper noun. It’s not the first word in a sentence. It’s not the main words in a title. This should have simply been written as “wedding anniversary”.
Remember the next time you’re tempted to capitalize a word to ask yourself if it’s a proper noun, if it’s the first word in a sentence, or it’s part of a title. Otherwise, just let it be.
Did you find this article helpful? Please become a monthly subscriber to show your support.
