I recently had someone come to my website after searching Google for the following phrase:
should you capitalize funeral service
Capitalization questions seems to be a fairly steady source of traffic for this blog. I haven’t addressed this specific question before, so here goes:
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
Proper noun
Funeral service is a common noun, just like dog, tree, or city. As such, it is never capitalized just on its own.
First word in a sentence
Because it’s not a common noun, there are only two times you’d capitalize funeral service. The first word in a sentence is one. An example of funeral service being used as the first word in a sentence is in the previous paragraph. Here are some others:
- Funeral services can be meaningful for the family and friends left behind.
- Funeral services are often quiet and sombre.
- Funeral services can be kind of creepy/
Main words in a title
The only other time to capitalize funeral service is when you use it in the title of a book (or film, play, etc).
- Funeral Services for Dummies
- How to Put on Your Next Funeral Service Without a Hitch
- 101 Lessons I Learned From Organizing Funeral Services
Remember the next time you’re tempted to capitalize a funeral service, ask yourself if it’s the first word in a sentence or part of a title. If not, just let it be.
