Anti capitalist who hates lower case names
As a copy editor it irritates me when organisations adopt names that don’t use capital letters. The practice has become common in the internet age.
It defies all grammatical rules for a name to be uncapitalised.
I’m a ruthless anti capitalist and kill stray capitals whenever I see them, especially in titles. The president of the Lions Club does not warrant a capital P.
With such a knife-wielding attitude to capitals, one might assume that I welcome the radicalism of names being uncapitalised, but I don’t. It’s an affront to decency, a marketing ploy that has corrupted the language.
How can I justify to readers and cadet journalists that a sentence may begin with a lower case letter? It’s just not on.
A name is a proper noun and should carry a capital letter; eBay should be Ebay, mBox should be Mbox. (more…)
Target Word
I enjoy the Target Word game on my Android mobile phone. Anagrams flood my brain at quiet moments.
Letter from the school
A letter arrived from the high school today. It was dated August 10, so it should have arrived earlier, but we don’t check the box more than twice a week and they had the wrong number in the address.
Parents don’t like letters from schools. Normally it’s a bill, or there’s a prospect someone may be complaining about something your child has done or not done.
This one was personally addressed, with three hand-written signatures from the deputy principal, a teacher and a faculty co-ordinator.
Oh, oh! (more…)
English spelling
Retarius wrote a blog post recently about the English language. Then I came across Johanna’s spelling blog.
I’m interested in the development of English, how regional variations evolved and where the language is heading.
For someone who has never undertaken formal academic study it’s probably unusual to be interested in linguistics, but I do find the subject stimulating. (more…)
ANZAC or Anzac?
The language is constantly evolving with a trend towards brevity. Waggon has become wagon and to-day has become today.
Some Australians cling to what they believe is English spelling for words like “programme” and anything that potentially ends in -our like “colour”.
I think they are mistaken. Researching newspapers from the 1890s for my family history a few years ago the consistent style was to spell “color” etc. (more…)
Ancient language goes modern
It’s rather ironic I learned about The Vatican’s web site from a blog named The Inquisitr 
I’m not surprised The Vatican has a web site; it’s just I had never thought about it before and had never visited.
As The Inquisitr reveals, a Latin section was only recently added.
I’ve never studied Latin and I was born just after the Second Vatican Council, so I never experienced a Latin Mass.
I can appreciate the value of Latin. From Roman times to the Industrial Revolution it was the universal language. (more…)
Poor handwriting
I’m embarrassed how poor my handwriting has become. It was never good, but it’s become worse. I struggled to write neatly in primary school; now it’s impossible.
I can print letters okay, but cursive script is atrocious.
Today I wrote Christmas messages for some key contacts. I could barely read them myself. I blame two factors:
1) Typing. I’ve typed far more than I’ve written over the past 20 years. I barely write at all now, except short notes and my signature.
2) Work. I never learned proper shorthand, but developed my own version. It gives me useful notes of conversations, meetings and interviews. Only I can read it, so it’s almost like writing in code!
So, between lack of use and “writing” an alternative script I figure that I’ve lost the art of cursive script. Whether I need to rediscover it is debatable.
