Understanding CAP Rules When It Comes to Family Titles

Perhaps you're familiar with this, or maybe it's a refresher. Either way, did you know there are rules regarding whether or not Mom (mother), Dad (father), Brother, Sister, Aunt, Uncle, Cousin, Grandmother, or Grandfather are capitalized in a sentence? Do you know the rules?

Well, let me elaborate. When family titles stand alone, and I am referring to immediate family titles, not first cousins, for example, capitalize as in the following examples (Sabin, pp. 100-101):

• I asked Mom if she would make her famous meatloaf in a sourdough bowl.

• Can Mom and Dad join us for a Sunday barbecue?

• I requested that Aunt and Uncle join us for an Easter feast.

• Let me check if the date of our Easter feast is suitable for Grandma and Grandpa.

There is an exception to the family title rule. When family titles are preceded by possessives (like my, his, her, our, and their) and describe a family relationship, don't capitalize them (Sabin, pp. 100-101). The following examples illustrate this best:

• My cousin asked about the upcoming birth of our son.

• Would it be okay to ask our brother to do the blessing?

• I asked my brother to do the blessing.

• My grandmother played hoops with me into her seventies.

Are we done with rule exceptions? If you said no, you guessed correctly; there is an exception to family titles preceded by possessives. If the words uncle, aunt, or cousin form a unit with a first name, capitalize these titles even when preceded by a possessive, such as (Sabin, pp. 100-101):

• I want you to ride to the family barbecue with my Uncle Artemis and me.

• I would like you to meet our Cousin Jay

• Sally would like us to meet her Aunty Jessie.

Thank you for reading my post. I hope that you learned something new or had a great refresher, as I did. Please comment below if you were already familiar with the CAP rules for family titles or if you learned something new. I would love to hear about your journey with grammar.

Happy grammaring!

Note: I didn't use other family titles, such as niece, nephew, son, and daughter, to illustrate CAP rules, but they are considered immediate family titles and can also be used in the above examples.

Sabin, William A. The Gregg Reference Manual A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting, Tenth ed., McGraw-Hill Irwin, New York, NY, 2005, pp. 100–101.