capitalization serves no purpose. i’ve done an extensive amount of research on the subject, and in the ones of articles that i’ve read, there isn’t a single mention of why capitalization came about. i would be willing to wager a sum of upwards of $25 that some asshole named frederick capital thought it would be pretty sweet if he made some letters bigger than others, and call it capital-ization. this dick single-handedly made 98% of elementary school students fail the handwriting quiz because they couldn’t write a cursive capital q (it looks like a 2—real imaginative Frederick). prick.
apparently, according to mr. capital, some words are just more important than others. consider the following piece of fiction for example:
“Miles Davis, some Indians, and a Jew went to the local Kleenex factory to see how God and Mr. Franco were doing. While there, they encountered some members of the Ku Klux Klan speaking Spanish together. It turned out the Klan members were actually New York Mets and they and Miles Davis decided to go to Thanksgiving together, on September 23rd, which was a Thursday. They got on the Internet and booked flights to Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts so they could see the Atlantic Ocean. God and the Native Americans got pissed about this so they decided to play a trick on Miles Davis and the Mets. They got some Crisco and greased up the wheels of the American Airlines airplane so when the plane landed, it was too slippery and crashed into a forest of Red Pines and Peregrine Falcons. Miles Davis and the New York Mets did not get to the Promised Land.”
now, i don’t believe the ku klux klan is ever looked upon favorably, so why should it be capitalized? and the new york mets are probably even less popular, yet they continue to stand above other words. the word “scrotum” is pretty cool, and yet it is stuck in the inferior text. crisco and kleenex are alright, but should my microsoft word program really be correcting me right now—trying to capitalize these words like they are on the same level as god and frankie muniz? our capitalization rules have gotten out of control and what is the point anyway? all of the other conventions and mechanics i can understand, but capitalization makes about as much sense as giving ray charles a digital camera for christmas:
ray: who’s this one from, honey?
wife: that’s from cousin melvin.
ray opens the gift
ray: what is it honey?
wife: it’s a digital camera ray.
melvin: do you like it ray?
ray: yeah its great! now i can go on that photo safari i was dreaming about. oh, but… damn. i just remembered: i am not currently blessed with the gift of sight. thanks for reminding me though. dickhead.
anyway, like I was saying, all of the other english mechanics make sense. let’s explore them:
the colon
not only is the colon great at extracting water from feces and producing stool samples on command (physiology humor), it is also very adept informing the reader that what follows it clarifies what precedes it.
sentence with a colon: “the theory proves two things: that george bush sucks and our country is being run by incompetent retards.”
same sentence without: “the theory proves two things that george bush sucks and our country is being run by incompetent retards.”
the second sentence makes it sound like the topic of the sentence is ‘that george bush sucks,’ and the part about the country being mismanaged is an afterthought. but we aren’t sure exactly what these sucked things are. are they kittens? are they grapes? colonlessly, who knows?
(oh and without colon, who would supply the eyes for the smiley faces? :) )
the comma
by far my favorite piece of punctuation is my friend the comma. the comma is great because he provides for dramatic pauses. his presence is able to change the entire meaning of the sentence. for example, i was recently playing some online poker and a player was taking forever to act on his hand. instead of typing “let’s go, jerkoff” – implying that i would like him to engage in decision-making in a prompt manner, i wrote “let’s go jerkoff” which makes it sound like i want to share an intimate moment of self-gratification with this guy. hilarious! fortunately my peers were too stupid to pick up the nuances of the language and i was spared the feeling of everyone else thinking that i wanted to play a rousing game of ookie cookie or soggy biscuit.
the exclamation point
i really don’t like exclamation point that much. he is overused and tends to be taken advantage of by sorority girls who love to punctuate every sentence with his lanky body. for this reason, i tend to try to compensate and use him with extreme frugality. but i do recognize his function—there are just some sentences that have to be exclaimed. for example:
“dude, your son just stapled my balls to the coffee table!”
this sentence really personifies the urgency of the situation. the guy just got his balls stapled to the coffee table and he would really like some assistance in getting the staple out of his scrotum.
“dude, your son just stapled my balls to the coffee table.”
this sentence conveys a feeling of satisfaction—the guy is happy that his anatomy is fastened to the furniture by a piece of u-shaped metal and shows no real urgency to remedy the situation. this is fine, but it doesn’t capture the essence of a realistic scenario. no un-stoned man is going to be fine with this state of affairs. exclamation point lets us find this urgency and allows us to express it to the highest degree.
the period
the final convention that i would like to examine is the period (notice no physiology jokes this time). without the period, there would be absolutely no rhyme or reason to any paragraph or work of writing. it would be total chaos—like trying to find a nickel taped to a 10-armed, spanking machine. the period is the glue that holds together the entire english language. he tells everyone else where to be and exactly what to wear.
this brings us back to capitalization. i have written this entire article without capitalizing a single word (except for the part about the mets and the kkk) and i don’t think that you had a bit of trouble reading it. this proves that unlike his punctuation brethren, capitalization is utterly useless. if we all band together we can have an equal opportunity language—where all letters are treated fairly and all words carry the same weight. And we can be exactly like rosa parks (and I mean exactly) and free all of those letters in the inferior texts from settling for the back of the language bus.
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was that last “and” supposed to be capitalized? Looks like Mr. Frederick got you in the end.
Kleenix is capitalized when referring to the brand, but lower case when you want to refer to just generic tissues and destroy their trademark.
I think it is entirely justified to examine the period with as many physiology jokes as possible.
whats up with the exclusively masculine punctuation? you could have given us the period, at least.
Great article Matt! One of your best yet.
Although, I do enjoy capital letters… for example, “I REALLY hate when people don’t properly capitalize my first name.” Now, if I were to say, “I really hate when blah blah blah,” you couldn’t hear my overemphasis on the word ‘really’ and that would be tragic (in my opinion).
P.S. Now that I’ve fully discosed my annoyance for improper capitalization of the L in my first name, no one will ever correctly capitalize it again. F.
fuck capitalization, tom wolfesque usage of exclamation points and pluralizing a word by using an apostrophe.
ALLCAPS IS ACCEPTABLE (and is a good song).
exception: your brother is a douchenozzle with a capital Douche.
capiltalization and it’s partner in crime punctuation. it’s about someone took those bastards to task. thank you matt.
now, what about allegory and similes? i think they’ve been on the slide for too long.
Where have I read this before??
ahh…you make valid points.
i think your next article should discuss ways to boycott the apostrophe.
i.e. the “it” mind-fuck. If a noun owns something, that noun gets an apostrophe. if the “it” owns something, it is fucked. only when the it comes with an “is” or “has” does it get an apostrophe. if that is not pure discrimination, I do not know what is.
also, names should be capitalized. otherwise, you, matt, are at high risk of being textually perceived as a door mat in the unlikely but possible occurance of a simultaenous ‘M’ boycotting and ‘t’ abandonment.
oh…and F cursive. i always thought the cursive ‘z’ was a bitch.
must have been Fred Cap’s retarded cousin, Curt Cursive, who thought that parallel lines sandwiching a diagonal line translates to an upside-down, sideways horseshoe with an attached pig tail?
Hilarious.
Woops. That was me.
Capitalization is important. It is the difference between “helping your Uncle Jack off a horse” and “helping your uncle jack off a horse”.