Some advice that was sent to me recently which explains itself succinctly.
From a Teacher
In the world of hi-tech gadgetry and communication, I've noticed that more and more people who send text messages, and emails have long forgotten the art of capitalization. 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?
Sorry couldn't find a picture of Uncle Jack or the horse.
Angharad.
Comments
Not sure I want a picture!
Might that not cause problems with the ISP? :-)
Capability....
Depends on how capable Jack or jack is ;)
Mark
Everything...
...can be found on the Internet:
Uncle Jack, only this one's named Uncle Greg...
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Yuck!
With a capital Y.
Angharad
Angharad
x
.
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
Capitalisation
That's one small advantage of the German language. The capitalisation rules are much easier.
M
Martina
Oh?
So, what, do they do both?
Wren
German
Hi Wren,
In German ALL nouns are capitalized. (Pronouns are not) Therefore in the case of 'jack' [off] being used as a verb, it would not be capitalized and that would indicate the difference in meaning. (I'm not sure whether there is an idiomatic equivalent to 'jack off'.)
Interestingly unlike the egotistical English language, which capitalizes the pronoun for first person singular, the German language treats that case as it does all other pronouns.
with love,
Hope
with love,
HER
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
Well... to translate "jack
Well... to translate "jack off". In german you would use "(he)runter holen" = "take down". Peter holte sich einen runter = Peter jacked off.
But we don't use a name for a person to describe masturbation ^^
The capitalisation is actually an issue if you try to learn english. First you have to stop capitalizing every noun, and then you have to think while writing german to capitalize the nouns ;)
Languages are fun, if you command them :D
Beyogi
My job-site German teacher (Foreman)
Hi Beyogi,
The guy who taught me all the bad stuff my parents and formal German teachers seemed to miss, used the term '[sich einen] abwichsen' i.e. 'wax [oneself] off'. This gives a whole new meaning to the "Karate Kid" quote.(and would have played havoc with the car's paint-job.)
with love,
Hope
with love,
HER
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
I don't really use it, but
I don't really use it, but it works too :D (And it is in use ;)
There's a similar one about a Panda...
Still, all we can really do is make sure our own literacy is, well, literate. I believe it was Ghandi who once said "Be the change you want to see".
Either way the horse will be
Either way the horse will be happy.
Capitalisation advice.
The horse will be happy, but what about Jack?
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Ugh!
He probably went to uncle off...
Janet
Mistress of the Guild of Evil [Strawberry] Blonde Proofreaders
To be or not to be... ask Schrodinger's cat.
Janet
Mistress of the Guild of Evil [Strawberry] Blonde Proofreaders
To be or not to be... ask Schrodinger's cat.
capital on parents.
My issue is this. Is it mommy and daddy or Mommy and Daddy. I swap back and forth repeatedly because I am unclear. or is it "Daddy," Jenny said to her daddy. "Mommy is being a good mommy."
Someone help me before the grammar Nazis get me.
K.T. Leone
My fiction feels more real than reality
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
Rule of Thumb
If it makes sense when you swap the familial term with a proper noun it should be capitalized.
"How are you doing, Mom?" (How are you doing, Carla?")
"How is the mom doing?" (How is the Carla doing? That doesn't make sense unless you're talking about an egomaniac like Donald Trump.)
In other words a specific person is capitalized, a non-specific person is not.
I hope that helps.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Funny!
I saw the comment, and I was just going to write, "Angela Rasch taught me it this way..." when I saw your comment. See, I was listening!
Wren
As I was taught, these words
As I was taught, these words should be treated the same as titles - which they are considered to be, only with the name elided. If it's right in the situation to capitalise for instance Mrs. instead of using mrs., then and no other case should you capitalise these words.
But that's with the caveat that I'm not from a country with English as the native language, and what we're taught isn't always correct, nor is it always modern usage.
Proper nouns...
-involve rather more delicate distinctions than our ordinary brains are able to reason through some days.
There are two rules:
Example: My mother is one of many mothers, but Mother is one of a kind.
Further example: John was swept up in a police sting last night in which they targeted both pimps and johns.
When you use a word as if it were a name, you capitalise it. Some words are designed to be inherently proper nouns, but quickly lose that status, because people are creative and love to play with language.
An Oreo cookie has a trademarked proper name, so should be capitalised except when we say, for example, "Thomas is just an oreo*, black on the outside, but trying to be white on the inside." We've taken the "trademarked" name and twisted it around to suit our purposes, which sort of thing we do all the time.
Cheers,
Puddin'
* An idiomatic, primarily American, expression of contempt in certain circles. You have to live in a racist society for it to make much sense. Note that there are special rules for "black" and "white" in this example sentence, despite the fact that the two words are really used as adjectives, and should (officially) never be capitalised. If one is a White Racist, the word "White" should always be capitalised when it's used to describe people of "Aryan" descent, as if it referred to something real and trademarked, as it were, like Roman Catholic, or Group Captain Jones of the Royal Air Force. A similar declension exists for "Black," with varying degrees of "respect" or "lack of awe" indicated by how big a capital letter one indicates in either speech or the written word, if a capital is indicated at all.
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Bah!
I will absolutely never ever kick me if you have to if I don't drag me through the mud .....
but I will NOT capitalize .... Chinese. *snicker*
Kim
Re: Bah!
Huh?
Dave.
Achem !
No comment.
:)
Lady Gwendolyn