View Full Version : Proper use of Capital letters.


Allan Black
February 20th, 2012, 08:20 PM
I've noticed that more and more people who send text messages, emails and post here, seem to have forgotten the art of Capital letters.

For those of you who fall into this category, please take note of the following statement:

"Capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse."

Is everybody clear on that?

Cheers.

Pete Bauer
February 20th, 2012, 08:47 PM
i dOn't kNow bUt i'Ve bEen tOld tHat tHere cAn bE a lOt mOre mOney iN tHe lAtter tHan tHe fOrmer.

Chris Hurd
February 21st, 2012, 04:43 PM
tHREAD mOVED tO aREA 51.

Tom Hardwick
February 24th, 2012, 07:02 AM
Allan, you're right - I keep seeing zebras given a capital letter when I'm pretty sure the same writer wouldn't give a polar bear the same importance. And what's this with the apostrophe? I'm pretty sure people wouldn't say they've got two dog's, but they seem perfectly happy to say they've got two DVD's.

tom.

Colin McDonald
February 25th, 2012, 04:44 PM
I agree, Tom. Obviously all their expensive education's not worth a monkey's.

But basically, I couldn't give a rat's - I've given up on standards of literacy on the internet.

(Possessive not plural, of course, relating the the object understood and not the same thing at all).

Pete Bauer
February 25th, 2012, 08:06 PM
So is it "The Internet's" or "the internetz?"

Les Wilson
February 25th, 2012, 08:31 PM
It all makes sense once you understand that grammars and dictionaries are descriptive not prescriptive.

Don Bloom
February 25th, 2012, 10:07 PM
hMMM, i'M conFuseD! Good thing I can use my old age as a excuse since I went to school so long ago, I forgot everything they learned me.
O|O
\--/

Pete Bauer
February 26th, 2012, 09:55 AM
...I've forgotten more than I ever knew.

Allan Black
April 29th, 2012, 06:37 PM
With due credit to the author .. 'How to lose $300 million .. er Million'

A Stern Warning: Words Do Matter | LawLawLandBlog.com (http://www.lawlawlandblog.com/2012/04/a-stern-warning-words-do-matter.html)

Cheers.

Rob MacFarlane
May 1st, 2012, 06:25 PM
coming from a unix background where case matters, i'm not keen on capitalization, and in particular dislike ALL-CAPS sentences. there's much more information to be gleaned from Mixed-Caps then from ALL-CAPS. leaving out the capitals, as you point, can cause riotous results, and conveys a great deal of visual information (e.g., the letter's descenders are valuable to the human eye).

and e.e.cummings was onto something... :)

- rob

ps - i do try to correctly capitalize other person's and entities' names...