Sometimes, people abbreviate these names which can make it a bit more confusing. To put it in another way that may make it easier to understand, talking about a region, such as Western Europe, means capitals are used.
I think I get it and how to capitalize directions now. It depends on how the direction is being used in the sentence, right? Yes, that is correct. If they are merely giving direction, they are not capitalized. If they are part of a proper name, then they are.
Directions always gave me trouble and I sometimes would capitalize, but not other times. You certainly learn something new every day. North, South, East, West or north, south, east, west. As such, in this post, we will explore these rules while providing illustrative examples. Like we already explained, various rules guide how you capitalize cardinal directions.
In case you are not sure what we are talking about, it is simple. Cardinal directions are words that indicate general geographic locations or compass directions. These words are primarily four — north, west, south, and east — although there are derivatives.
Now, to understand these rules, you must place them under two categories. The first rule involves those guiding when to capitalize. The other set of rules dictates when you should not capitalize.
So, now that we have cleared that up let us get straight to the rules. First up are the rules guiding when to capitalize cardinal directions.
Now note that you should capitalize all cardinal words in cases where they indicate specific or definite regions. For instance, where you state that your horse is in the North, you need to capitalize it as we did above.
Similarly, you are expected to capitalize cardinal directions when they constitute a member of proper names. Typically, you are expected to capitalize proper names. Now, since it functions as a member of such a name, you capitalize it. For instance, if your house is on the West Coast, you will need to capitalize the cardinal direction west.
This is because its combination with the word coast makes it a proper noun. Next up is deciding when you should not capitalize cardinal directions. The general rule is that you should refrain from doing so where the words indicate a general location or direction.
In this case, their use is merely to indicate a general place rather than a definite region. For instance, if you are going north of France, the word north is merely a general location.
Describing people from a region is a situation where you need to consult your style guide. The AP style guide , for example, requires words like Southerner and Midwesterner to be capitalized. However, the Chicago Manual of Style prefers to keep southerner and midwesterner in lowercase. If you're not using a specific style guide in your writing, it's up to your personal preference. Capitalizing directions isn't as tricky as it looks. Now that you know when you capitalize the words north, south, east, and west , as well as northern, southern, eastern, and western , you're well on your way to grammar perfection!
Keep the lesson going with these special capitalization cases that can help you in your writing. All rights reserved. Home Grammar Are Directions Capitalized? Easy Ways to Know When. When to Capitalize Directions When writing directions, it seems like they should be capitalized. Well-Known Geographic Regions If you've read about Southern California or the East Coast, you know that direction words are capitalized in these cases. Adjectives for Well-Known Regions and Nouns The same rule applies for specific regions when you add -ern onto the end of a direction.
Cultural Practices Another time to capitalize direction words is when you're describing habits, practices or activities from a specific culture. For example: Eastern philosophy philosophy from the Eastern Hemisphere Western medicine medicine from the Western Hemisphere Southern hospitality hospitality from the American South Midwestern nice niceness from the American Midwest The nouns after the capitalized direction words aren't capitalized but are still specific to that region.
When Not to Capitalize Directions If you're describing general directions or ideas rather than a specific location, you don't need to capitalize the direction words. Compass Directions Directing someone in the north, south, east, or west direction doesn't require capitalization. For example: Head east until you see a fork in the road. The birds are flying south for the winter. The settlers moved west for better opportunities.
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