Capitalisation for titles

As you know, we have once before jumped into the crystal clear waters of how to use capital letters.

But my fans have told me that they are hungry for more information. They have contacted me via twitter, facebook, gmail chat and telegram, begging me to give them more information about how to use capital letters in the right way.

And certainly, capital letters are confusing, not least when you are writing the title of something, such as a memoir you have just written about your life, or a thesis on the mating patterns of salmon, or even a power ballard. Questions you might find yourself asking are "Should my power ballard be written 'The Love Exchange Only Hands Out Monopoly Money', or 'The love exchange only hands out monopoly money', OR should only some of those words be in capitalised?"

Let me explain.

When you are writing titles, some words need to be capitalised, and others don't need to be. The ones that do need to be capitalised are:

•  The first and last words of the title; or
• All nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives

The words that should not be capitalised, unless they are the first or last word, are:

• articles (a, an, the) 
• conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet) 
• short adpositions (3 and less letters long): at, by, for, in, of, off, on, out, to, up
• some Latin abbreviations (most common only): c./ca./cca. (circa), et al. (et alii), etc. (et cetera), e.g. (exempli gratia), i.e. (id est), lb. (libra), vs. (versus). 
• medium adpositions (4 letters long): down, from, into, like, near, onto, over, than, with, upon.

For example

That Tall Man, He Runs Fast!

All these words fall into the first category of words that should be capitalised. On the other hand, a title like:

Who's That Man over there?

Would not need to be all capitals because the words in blue are prepositions, which are not to be capitalised.

Some other examples:

Believing the Lie (i.e.first word/article/last word)

Diary of a Whimpy Kid (i.e. first word/short adposition/article/adjective/last word)  

It Was Just a Bit of Fun (i.e first word/verb/adjective/article/noun/adposition/last word)

These Titles Seem to Be Getting Longer and Longer (first word/noun/verb/adposition/verb/verb/adjective/coordinating conjunction/adjective)

But HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE for a minute. You might have noticed that like some sort of hypocritical monstrous dictator of some sort, MC Grammar himself does not follow these rules in his own blog posts. What the fuck? Well, this is where capitalisation for titles gets hazy, because the rules for blog titles are still hazy. For example, the very fine Julie Burchill, a very long-established journalist, only capitalises the first word of her titles, and any proper nouns that come up, whereas the very funny Cody Johnston tends to capitalise everything except coordinating conjunctions. Both are highly respectable journalists and writers, both are well-school in the fine arts of grammar. So who to follow? Well, the best bet is to follow the rules I have set up here, but just remember that the internet is a changing beast, and what rules arise for capitalisations, we simply don't know yet.

To see us out, let's sit back, relax, and listen to the very excellent Capital Letters, who never mess up their capitalisations of titles, and hope that someday you can be like them.

If I were you, I'd read this post on subjunctive verbs

Have you ever noticed that sometimes people say things like 'If I were able to, I would dance all night', or 'If I were president, I'd make it illegal to chew loudly', and you're all like 'hang on friend, why are you talking in the past tense? Don't you mean "If I was able to, I would dance all night", and "If I was President, I'd make it illegal to chew loudly"?'

And then they say 'no way! I mean "if I were able to", because I'm talking in the subjunctive.'

The subjunctive is a verb form that you use when you are talking about scenarios that are not definitely going to happen. 

For example, instead of saying 'If I was God', you would generally say 'If I were God', because you're probably not going to become God anytime soon.

The structure of the subjunctive is easy. For all verbs except the past tense of be, the subjunctive is the same as the bare infinitive (infinitive without "to"):

be (past)               be (present)                        Other verbs, (i.e to swim)


I were                    I be                                     I swim

you were               you be                                  you swim

he, she, it were     he, she, it be                        he, she, it swim

we were                we be                                 we swim

 you were                you be                               you swim

they were              they be                                 they swim


As you can see, the subjunctive does not change according to person (I, you, he etc).

Here are some examples with a subjunctive verb:


The farmer insists that the barn be locked at night.

The doctor recommended that he join a gym.

It is essential that we leave as soon as possible

It was necessary that every student submit an essay by Friday

And now, a subjunctive treat for all my grammar brothers and sisters, an amazing home made video by two very clever cats, all about the Spanish subjunctive. It's a bit off topic for us, since I usually talk about Spanish grammar on my other blog 'Señor Gramática - Basta!, Es el momento de la gramática!' but who can resist when these two bright students sing 'And I'm like, Present, Present Subjunctive'

'Commadore Norrington, my effects please': The difference between affect and effect

The difference between affect and effect has confused more than a few people.  And make no mistake, sometimes even MC Grammar can end up throwing himself on his four-poster bed, howling in frustration at this very tricky area of grammar.

But lucky for us, the difference between affect and effect is a lot simpler than you might think. The thing is, effect and affect are homonyms, which means that even though they sound the same, they have different meanings. Read on, grammar children.

Affect means:

1. To have an influence or cause a change in something

Too much sunlight affected the quality of the photograph

2. To act on the emotions of, to touch, to move.

The arguments and fighting affected me badly

3. To attack or infect

Rabies affects the brain


Effect, on the other hand, means:

1. A result

The drugs took effect immediately


There was more positive information available about immigration, effecting a change attitudes towards immigrants.

2. The power to produce an outcome or achieve a result

The president's threats to kill everyone had no effect on the protesters

3. Something that produces a specific impression, or supports a general design or intention:

The fireworks were the best effects of the concert

If you ever get lost, there's a handy way of remembering the difference. In  the movie 'Pirates of the Caribbean', Captain Jack Sparrow has managed to get off from being arrested.  Demanding his stuff back, he says: 'Commodore Norrington, my effects please, and my hat'. When Sparrow asks for his effects he means his sword, his compass, and his belt. These are his effects, meaning the things that make him Captain Jack Sparrow. Your effects are the things that add a little something to the occasion, which is why fireworks are effects, or special animation techniques in a movie are effects.

Attack of the Similar Words! Practise vs Practice

An incredible thing happened to me the other day, as I was walking down the street. It was early in the morning, and I was the only one about. With the dew on the leaves, and the clouds still all fresh and pink, it could well have been the first day in creation, and I could have been the first cat who ever wore balloon pants affixed with a leather cummerbund, as I sauntered down that street.

As I turned a corner, I happened to pass by a young dude. He looked like he was in his teens, he had a shock of fluffy blond hair on the top of his head, a red shirt, and a pair of light-coloured jeans on.

I passed him and went along my merry way. I kept walking down the street and after about 20 metres, I made a short-cut through a narrow laneway. Then something very messed up happened: the same boy walked passed me again in the lane way.

For a few second there, my mind was a mess of panicking contortions. There was no way this boy could have made it around the block in the few seconds since I had passed him before. And not only were these people identical in every way, but they were also wearing exactly the same thing.

Of course, after just a few seconds, using the powers of logic that I am so well known for, I worked out that these people were probably twins, and not clones. And since they were funky teen twins (or 'tweenins' as you might consider calling them), they probably (a) had a lot of sibling rivalry, which explained why they didn’t want to walk together, and (b) on their way to school, which was why they were both walking in the same direction.

Another problem solved. But it got me thinking. Just like life, grammar is full of confusing look-alikes that not only look just the same, but almost do exactly the same thing too. So when you come across them in a sentence, you can often find yourself asking ‘WTF? What’s the actual difference between these two words?’

Take for example, the difference between ‘practise’ and ‘practice.’

You might look at these two words and at first you’d be all like ‘Oh, the reason that one of these has an s, and one of these has a c, is because one is an American spelling, and one is a British spelling’ You’d be wrong. In the UK, ‘practice’ and ‘practise’ are both used, while in the US, only ‘practice’ is used. Which kind of doesn’t help at all.

So, just say you don’t live in the wide, glorious land of the United States. Let's just say that although you’ve applied through several channels, you can’t get a work visa. What do you do next?

In the UK and its sexy colony, Australia, ‘practice’ is a noun, while ‘practise’ is a verb. For example:


Dr Wright’s a pretty good doctor. His medical practice is just down the road.


 I need to practise my capoeira, so I can become a dancing warrior.


Are you a practising Catholic?


Meanwhile, at some stage in history, the US decided this was a pretty small detail, and that they were pretty busy and couldn’t really be fucked, and started using ‘practice’ for everything.

It's most likely that there are some cases where North Americans might try to stick to what’s technically correct, but when you are on your tourist's visa in the US, pursuing research into the many practices that Americans engage in, and noting it all down in your field notes, MC Grammar recommends that it’s probably best to stick to that spelling in your field report.

Back to the recent past! 'Used to' and 'use to'

This is Amy.

Amy made a terrible mistake that has to do with the internet fridge.

You see, around 2003, Amy had a lot of money. She had been saving up her wages for years, because she had a feeling that a major technological breakthrough was about to burst out of the dull mould of all that had come before, such as mini-disk players, or the 1969 h316 computer, which cost $10,000 US and could only store recipes.

And then, there it was: the internet fridge. It was breathtaking. It had so many features – it had the internet, obviously, but it also had a computerised notepad, where people could write messages to each other like ‘get milk’ instead of just writing a regular note. Photos of the happy family that owned the internet fridge could also be flashed in a slide show sequence, instead of just putting regular photos up on the fridge. It had so many features. And in addition to that, it was also a fridge, where food could be stored, just like a regular fridge. That was enough for Amy. She knew that this was the technological moment that she had been waiting for. And she had also saved $15,000, which was what the internet fridge cost.

And then, twelve months later, Amy heard talk of something called an 'iPod'. Suddenly, everyone was using one, revelling in the fact that they no longer had to lumber around with CD players jammed in their pants, or that they would have buy complicated walkman-pouches so they could play their single CD over and over again, until they could get home to play it. And they revelled in how they could store all the music they owned in this tiny machine. Amy tried to keep talking up the merits of the internet fridge, but no one wanted to listen any more. In fact, they couldn’t hear her at all, because they were all listening to their iPods, which had cost a mere $500.


Poor Amy. Because of her bad decision, she found herself trapped in the recent past. She suddenly belonged to a time in the past that wasn’t too distant, but was just outdated enough to push her out of the present. This is just like our grammar spotlight today, and the dilemma of  used to and use to.

These are two terms are trapped in a swampy marsh of the past, but serve different functions. What is the difference between these two terms? Is there a difference? Step into my funky tardis and let’s find out.


These terms may look the same, but they are used for describing different time periods.

As you may know, the word use is a verb, and the past tense of use is used.


The term used to is for when you’re talking about repeated actions or events that happened a long time ago, but have now stopped.


When I was single, I used to spend my weekends writing complaint letters to David Jones.



You can also use it for actions that you once did a lot, but now don’t do as much.


We used to go out all the time.


This implies you may still go out sometimes, but not as often as before.


You say use to when it follows did or didn’t. For example,


Didn’t you use to type out swear words with your label maker and stick them to pigeons?


I didn’t use to grow a moustache, but when I got dumped for the 36th time I changed my mind.


Did you use to ride the monster truck?


In these sorts of sentences, the action (typing, growing a beard, riding the monster truck) are not completely in the past, and they may not have happened all that long ago – in fact there’s a chance they have escaped into the present, and may even career into the future like a drunk on a hoverboard. For this reason, we use the present tense, use. Just to be on the safe side. MC Grammar thinks you should always be safe. I don’t want to have to meet your mother’s eye and tell her what happened to you out there when you tried to describe something that was only in the recent past, and got confused. Don’t put me in that situation.

This might all seem hard to follow, but there’s a very simple way of remembering how to go about things. If the words did or didn’t are in the sentence, then you say use. If did or didn’t aren’t there, then you say used to. This is the simplest way of working this out, and knowing exactly what time period you're talking about.