Golden Oldies: A Lesson in Capitals
by Miki SaxonIt’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies are a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.
Have you noticed how boring/confusing/annoying/embarrassing/etc. so much content, emails and other written communications are these days?
Or are you happy communicating by text and feel everyone should just forget dumb, outmoded stuff like grammar, capitols, punctuation, and shoving it out the door fast?
If you’re in the latter category I feel sorry for you. I’ve written many times about the value of good writing along with the importance of reading as a basis for it.
I don’t mean polished and professional; I mean the ability to put words together in a way they won’t be misunderstood.
If you think that it really doesn’t matter read the following 2012 post and join me tomorrow to see how a lowly comma cost a company big time.
Read other Golden Oldies here.
My client/friend, EMANIO [now Quarrio] CEO KG Charles-Harris, has been a guest poster here; he’s received several hat tips for sending links to information used in various posts and he just racked up another one.
I’ve written before about the importance of details when writing; details like commas, periods and capitals.
But the note KG forwarded drives home the importance of capitals—unforgettably.
Miki, I received this from a friend who is an English Professor and thought you would appreciate it; it’s short and to the point.
In the world of hi-tech gadgetry, I’ve noticed that more and more people who send text messages and emails have long 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.”
Thanks, KG; graphic word imagery does get the point across, even to teens.
Flickr image credit: ScottieT812
April 10th, 2017 at 3:02 pm
Hi Miki,
I sent this along because I notice that my writing skills are being denuded as time goes along. Punctuation, sentence structure, etc. is becoming increasingly difficult to think cogently about, much less practice, in a world with bad sentence completion, word suggestions and spell checkers. It's easy to take the lazy way out, despite that these tools seldom have tru NLU (natural language understanding).
The sad thing is that language is what I work with every day in my role at Quarrio, since we're essentially a language company.
Anyway – thanks for posting and mentioning me.
Best regards,
KG
April 10th, 2017 at 5:00 pm
Hi KG,
While I understand and, to some extent, agree with what you said, it's difficult to take you seriously after reading what you wrote. I doubt that most people could write that cogently no matter how much time they took.