+464.+ In our written speech we often display our lack of education by
our use of capital letters and punctuation. We may understand the use of
words and be able to speak fairly well, but if we do not understand the
proper use of capitals and of punctuation marks, our written language
readily betrays our ignorance.
+465.+ There are a number of rules for the use of capitals which we must
observe. Some of the writers in our magazines defy these rules of
capitalization, in an effort to seem different from other people,
perhaps. These rules for the use of capital letters, like all other
rules, are not arbitrary rules laid down by any body of men, but are
simply a statement of accepted usage among people. We should not feel
that we should say this or that or we are violating a rule of grammar.
We should feel rather that the majority of the people who speak and
write good English do thus, and so, for this reason, I shall do it also.
This is simply obeying the standard of majority rule. If there is any
good and sufficient reason why we feel this should not be a rule, we may
be justified in breaking it and making a new rule. Many people feel that
our spelling should be simplified and so they insist upon spelling
certain words in a more simple way. They feel that they have good and
sufficient reason for insisting upon this change and gradually if these
reasons appeal to the majority as being good and sufficient reasons,
then this simplified mode of spelling will become the accepted usage.
But there seems no good reason why any writer should scatter capital
letters with a lavish hand throughout his writing. One feels as though a
writer in so doing is expressing his desire to be different, in a very
superficial manner. Let us be unique and individual in our thought. If
this forces us to a different mode of living or of expression from the
rest of the world, then we are justified in being different from the
rest. We have thought and reason behind our action. This is far
different from the attitude of one who poses as a radical and whose only
protest is in the superficial external things. So let us learn and
observe these rules for the use of capital letters.