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From:  "Caio Rossi" <caiorossi@t...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  3:48 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] OT ~ Capital Letters:

Judy:

>Capitalizing every word can be considered "style" in only the most
superficial sense. It is easily interpreted as an affectation.<

How about some historical considerations?

From "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language", by David Crystal,
page 67:

"Hart recommended his readers to use a capital letter at the beginning of
every sentence, proper name, and important common noun... But the 17th
century, the practice had extended to titles, forms of address, and
personified nouns (Nature). Emphasized words and phrases would also attract
a capital. By the beginning of the 18th century, the influence of
Continental books had caused this practice to be extended still further, and
it was not long before some writers began using a capital for any noun that
they felt to be important. Books appeared in which all or most nouns were
given an initial capital ( as is done systematically in modern German )-
perhaps for AESTHETIC REASONS, or perhaps because printers were uncertain
about which nouns to capitalized, and so capitalized them all... However,
the later 18th-century grammarians were not amused by this apparent lack of
order and discipline in the written language..."

Now, this is funny ( pay special attention to this punctuation, btw ):

"The American statesman and scientist, Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), had a
keen interest in the English language... In a letter to Noah Webster,
written in 1789, he mourns the passing of the age of noun capitalization.
'In examining the English books that were printed between the restoration
and the accession of George the Second (1660-1727), we may observe, that all
substantives were begun with a capital, in which we imitated our mother
tongue, the German. This was more particularly useful to those who were not
well acquainted with the English, there being such a prodigious number of
our words that are both verbs and substantives, and spelt in the same
manner, though often accented differently in pronunciation. This method has,
by the fancy of printers, of late years been entirely laid aside; from an
idea, that suppressing the capitals shews the character to greater
advantage; those letters, prominent above the line, disturbing its even,
regular appearance. The effect of this change is so considerable, that a
learned man of France, who used to read our books, though not perfectly
acquainted with our language, in conversation with me on the subject of our
authors, attributed the greater obscurity he found in our modern books,
compared with those of the period above mentioned, to a change of style FOR
THE WORSE IN OUR WRITERS...This shews the inconvenience of that pretended
improvement'."

> It's like all
of the little curlicues and hearts or smiley faces instead of dots over an
"i" that teenage girls use. Once you're past about 15, it starts looking
very
silly. If you want to be taken seriously in adult company, I wouldn't
recommend it.<

I had a teacher in junior high who had students who used small circles
instead of dots over their 'is' and 'js' fill them all with their pens so
they would think twice before doing that again. That worked!

Caio






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