Modern German Grammar: A Practical Guide, Second Edition

• any form of the formal second person pronoun Sie (see 30.2) and the related
  possessive adjective Ihr (see 30.3)


• an adjective which is part of a title, often indicating an institution, e.g. die
  Europäische Union ‘the European Union’, Friedrich der Große ‘Frederick the
  Great’, der Deutsche Bundestag, ‘the German Bundestag’, das Rote Kreuz
  ‘the Red Cross’


• an adjective derived from a place name, e.g. das Münchner Hofbräuhaus ‘the
  Munich Hofbräuhaus’, die Berliner Mauer ‘the Berlin wall’ (see 47.1)
  (b) All other words in a sentence begin with a small letter, including:


• adjectives denoting nationalities, e.g. die europäischen Regierungen, ‘the
  European governments’, die britische Wirtschaft ‘the British economy’


• adjectives belonging to a fixed phrase which has acquired specialized meaning,
  e.g. die erste Hilfe ‘first aid’, das schwarze Brett ‘information board’ (which does
  not have to be black at all)
  (c) Note, however, the following cases concerning the use of adjectives:


• the adjective has a capital letter if it has the gender das and has a general reference,
  e.g. das Wichtigste ‘the most important thing’, das Gute an der Sache ‘the good
  thing about the matter’ (see 28.5)


• the adjective also has a capital letter if it has a specialized meaning as a noun, but
  the same adjective will be written with a small letter if it has a particular reference
  and if the noun to which it refers can be deduced from the context:
  Dann kam der Alte und sagte... (informal)
  Then the old man (or someone’s father) came and said...
  Der neue Wagen gefällt mir nicht so gut wie der alte.
  I don’t like the new car as much as the old one.

 See also 105.2 (p. 372).

An exception to this rule, however, is der einzelne ‘the individual’.

(d) Note also the following instances where words which may look like nouns are

written with a small letter. This is because they are seen as part of an adverbial, or some

other kind, of construction:

abends und nachmittags

in the evenings and afternoons

 See^50 (pp. 129–32) on adverbs and^81 (pp. 286–96) for use.

Otherwise nouns which are used as part of an adverbial expression retain their capital

letter:

heute Nachmittag, heute Abend, morgen Vormittag

this afternoon, this evening, tomorrow morning

in/mit Bezug auf

concerning/with reference to

 See 61.11 (p. 174).

im Großen und Ganzen

on the whole

 See 119.4 (p. 430).

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