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Communication Skills-II

notes All names of continents, countries, states and cities and the adjectives derived from these
are capitalized.

Example: The western part of Russia is in Europe, but its eastern section is in Asia.
Our company has branch offices in Seattle, Phoenix, Kansas City, Memphis, and
Cleveland.
I plan to study the history of the Spanish-speaking people in the West Indies. C’ezanne and
Renoir were French artists.
The names of commercial products should also be capitalized, but do not capitalize the generic
name when it is not part of the brand name. For example, Esquire Boot Polish and Lipton Cup-
a-Soup are the correct brand names, but Maxwell House Coffee and Van Heusen Shirts are not
correct, although Maxwell House makes coffee and Van Heusen makes shirts.

self assessment

Which words from the following sentences should have been capitalized?
1. the mayor of san juan, mayor ortega, decided to retire sunday, july 16.

2. my friend, tom wilson, bought a new honda accord last week in san francisco.
3. yesterday, i finished reading lord of the rings.
4. the president of general motors was interviewed in the july issue of newsweek.
5. david johnson drove his chevy blazer off the delaware memorial bridge last friday.

6. when i opened the new york times, i read that lieutenant martin bailey had accused his
commanding officer, colonel dunlap, of selling secret information to a north korean agent.
7. alan attended a lecture by professor c. r. klein on his treatise, “chemical properties of
popular diet foods.”
8. mary yelled to her little brother, “shut the door! it’s freezing in here.”

11.2 Basic Punctuation

In this unit, you will learn how and when to use the following punctuation marks:
Comma, full stop, colon, semi colon, hyphen, inverted commas and apostrophe.

11.2.1 comma

There are some basic rules which you can apply when using the comma. However, you will find
that in English there are many other ways to use the comma to add to the meaning of a sentence
or to emphasise an item, point or meaning. Although we are often taught that commas are used
to help us add ‘breathing spaces’ to sentences they are, in fact, more accurately used to organise
blocks of thought or logical groupings.

use the comma

1. To set off main clauses joined by “and,” “but,” “or,” “nor,” “for”

Example: The first alternative certainly offered the company many advantages, but the
second was probably more economical.

156 lovely Professional university