I recently had someone come to my website after searching for the phrase “is canadian capitalized”. I’ve never written on the topic, and since at least 5 people in the last 3 months have come here looking for an answer, I thought I’d post it.
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
In this case, Canadian is a proper noun. Person is a common noun; whereas Canadian refers to a specific type of person. Just like country and Canada, city and Lethbridge, or boy and Jack.
Remember the next time you wonder whether you should capitalize a word, ask yourself if it’s a proper noun, if it’s the first word in a sentence, or it’s part of a title.
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