I edit a lot of writing. In my work, I review the prose of CEOs and celebrities, assistants and managers. Some of them are actually very good writers, but the ones I really enjoy editing are not. There’s something very satisfying about taking a jumble of words and turning it into a piece with flow and meaning. Along the way, there’s a part of my brain (the part that wanted to study anthropology) that is noticing the WAY in which people use (or more interestingly – misuse) language.
The thing that has caught my attention the lately is the way people tend to capitalize random words.
Sometimes these errant capital letters make sense. People will write: I asked the President why I should vote for him. This mistake is understandable, but for the record, you only capitalize titles if they are used with (and as part of) a proper name: I asked President Barack Obama why I should vote for him, instead of Mitt Romney, who would also like to be president.
But these are not the typos that fascinate me. The ones I like are the ones that are inserted to give a certain importance to a word (either consciously or not). For instance, I edited a bio today that was written by a city manager. He wrote something along the lines of: My wife and I have two Daughters… There’s something just very sweet about that. His girls must be very important to him.
Sometimes people will capitalize the word dollar for no apparent reason (except that money is very important). I also like when people use the uppercase for website – as in: my Website is the greatest. (Of course, you are supposed to capitalized Internet, so this could just be confusion on the part of the writer.)
Anyhow, that’s what’s been kicking around in my brain.
If you could insist that the world capitalize one word – what would it be?
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