Sometimes when you vent just a little, more comes out than you intend. So yeah, apparently I wasn’t done talking about ways to irritate an editor (any editor).
Even watching Charlie napping in the chair beside me as I type isn’t enough to keep me from being a little irked. And that cat is adorable!
Yet not adorable enough to stop me from venting a bit more.
You might notice that you’ll rarely see anything written in all capital letters in the paper unless it’s an acronym, and even then generally only with a first reference that spells it out. Are we biased against capital letters? Nah. It’s about readability. A mix of upper- and lowercase letters is much easier to read than all upper- or lowercase letters. But that mix should be in accordance with common grammar rules.
I’m not talking about the Internet practice of wRitINg LikE tHis tO MoCK sOmeONe (good lord, is that annoying), but of the habit, seen in documents like the Constitution, of randomly capitalizing words. (Supposedly it was convention at the time to capitalize nouns, though that practice was dying out when the Constitution was written; in any case, some nouns weren’t capitalized, soooo … The German language also capitalizes a lot of words, but this is English, not German. Nor is the language a former president.)
If you want an editor’s blood pressure to rise and their eyes to bulge, send them something like this: Charlie was Indignant that His sitter Didn’t Immediately hop to whenever he Called to her. First she wouldn’t Let him stay Outside to Menace kevin The squirrel, Then she Ignored his demands For the entire Bag of Treats.
Some poor editor has to go through that, figure out which capitalizations are correct and fix all the rest of them. The editor deserves the whole bag of treats, and they’d better be chocolate.
One of the arguments I’ve seen for this random capitalization is that it’s to emphasize certain words since not all email systems see text the same way, and italics and bold print may not make it through. I find that difficult to reconcile when words like “of” and “the” end up being capitalized when they’re not the first word in the sentence. Heck, you can write the words you want to emphasize in all caps and it’ll be less annoying.
Let’s try a few basic rules of capitalization from Grammarly. Capitalize: the first word of a sentence; names and other proper nouns (names like mom, senator, etc., are capitalized if used as a form of address, as in “It was Mom who gave me permission,” but not as a general reference, as in “The senator declined to comment.”); days, months and holidays, but not seasons; the first word of a quote if it’s a complete sentence; most words in titles; and cities, countries, nationalities and languages (I would also add planets to that). There are other rules, but that’s a good start.
I feel my blood pressure lowering already …
Which probably means it’s time for Charlie to throw up somewhere in the house.
I noted last week how annoying it is when a writer refuses to spellcheck, opting instead to have the editor do it for him because surely she doesn’t have enough to do. But there’s a category of words that spellcheck wouldn’t help with: homophones.
Tim Torkildson, a Utah blogger, said he was fired from a job with a language school (!) because of a blog post about homophones; the school’s owner believed it associated the school with the “gay agenda” (the only agenda my gay friends seem to have is to be good humans and live their lives without bothering anyone … clearly a scary agenda).
Homophones have nothing to do with sex of any kind; they are sets of words having the same pronunciation, but different origins, meanings, and/or spellings. To, two, and too are examples of well-known homophones, as are there, they’re and their. (You might remember this joke: How do you comfort a grammar grouch? Say softly, “There, their, they’re.”) By comparison, a homograph has the same spelling but may have a different sound and meaning (like lead, to go in front of, and lead, the metal). Homonym is a broader term that may refer to either or both … because life and grammar aren’t confusing enough, though technically homonyms are words spelled or pronounced alike, but with different meanings.
Now that you’re thoroughly confused, understand that more than a few editors will laugh off the occasional “lead” (the metal) instead of “led” (past tense of lead, meaning to go before), or “verses” (parts of songs or poems) instead of “versus” (against), but seeing it consistently drives some of us (OK, me) bonkers. It implies at best a lack of knowledge and/or attention to detail, and at worst, a lack of respect.
Some of this can be put down to use of “talk-to-text” programs that can’t sense that you wanted “red” instead of “read” or that misheard what you said. (Oh, Siri, surely you didn’t think I really said “eagle testicle” instead of “egotistical.”) But that’s one of the reasons you should always reread before hitting “send,” lest the receiver wonder about your knowledge of eagle anatomy.
I dictate handwritten letters and those in all caps into my iPad to save my poor hands. I have broadcast and theater training, and even I can’t speak clearly enough to ensure that what I meant is what the AI decides I’ve said. Sometimes I believe Siri thinks I’m only slightly more articulate than Boomhauer from “King of the Hill.” Maybe true when I’ve just woken up (especially if it’s after surgery; I’m apparently hilarious then, but I have no recollection of what I said, dang it … I hate when that happens), but not as a rule.
I could, like others, use talk-to-text for my email or text messages, but I already have enough trouble with autocorrect changing what I typed. (Why change “antics” to “antibiotics”? In what universe does that make sense? And seriously, why keep replacing column with Columbia??) Those willing to take the chance are braver than I am.
And most likely more knowledgeable about eagle anatomy.
(OK, if you really must know, eagle testicles are internal, which I only know because I Googled it. I’m not an avian biologist, and I don’t care about the sex lives of birds unless it’s going on in an inopportune place (like the hood of my car when I need to go to work).
I have thought entirely too much about eagle testicles today. I need some Charlie time.
Serenity is a fuzzy belly 
You can get away with rubbing that cat’s belly? Around here that’s the fastest way I know to get a hand amputated! But he is gorgeous!
You touched on my current hot button, the “verses” vs “versus” thing. More specifically, the usage that has even adult sportscasters saying “verse” as though they think that’s what the “vs” abbreviation represents. Eg., “It’s Cowboys verse Eagles tonight.” Worse, the kids have mangled it even more and I’ve heard them challenge each other by saying, “I want to verse you.” I’m getting too old for this … groan
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Charlie is very sweet, and will allow belly rubs, but he’ll tell you when he’s had enough. With Luke, he had to be at least half asleep, and he’d react violently when he’d had enough.
Ugh. I would love to find the first idiot who used verse instead of versus and smack their pudding head.
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At first I thought “Capital offense” referred to the Congress and was unable to anticipate which offense you were referring to. I assumed misspellcheck changed the first word for you.
I had thought you might have focussed on Margorie Taylor Greene saying we should forget about the January 6th riot because it only happened once. Then, I could ask if she felt the same way about 9/11. But you didn’t, so I can’t.
[You can’t imagine how many times I proofread this comment.]
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🤣🤣🤣
And dang you for bringing up MTG. A pox on you! 😂
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Exactly!!
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Sweet Charlie! Grading nursing students’ papers was alot like editing from the sounds of it. 😆
I even liked diagramming sentences so long ago now. All those misspellings & incorrect usages of words I pick up everywhere. 🤦🏻♀️
My Gracie who loves belly rubs just came to me lap for more ☺️. She & her sister Misty were 11 months old April 11. Wish i could share a photo 😻.
Thank you for another great blog post!! 🤗
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I love how you incorporate Charlie into your columns!! Don’t let the fame go to his head!
I can relate to your frustration about capitalization. I would rather err on the side of not capitalizing words. Working in the insurance industry, I cringe when I see diseases capitalized. It’s diabetes, not Diabetes!! Legal documents are the worst offenders, and I can’t edit those.
When my son (aka the Evil Genius) was in middle school, he hacked my autocorrect settings to change common words like “the” and “it” to autocorrect to “buttcakes.” It took a couple of embarrassing texts for me to realize something fishy was going on.
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Now I’m going to think “buttcakes” every time I pass that picture in the hall. Thanks, John! 🤣
Charlie is such a sweet and goofy boy. Love that guy!
There’s one guy who used to write a lot of letters who used to capitalize Every Single Word. The people who do things like that, put spaces before punctuation, leave no space after punctuation, etc., are the ones that I edit last because I have to summon up the willpower not to just chuck them. 😑
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And anything medical – supposed to be using less acronyms – ha! Seems there are more & more & sometimes the only one who knows what an acronym means is the one who used it (took me a sec with MTG 😉
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There’s one writer who constantly uses acronyms; he obviously never had to copy-edit or he’d know better than to use acronyms that aren’t well-known without at the very least a first reference.
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My Golden Retriever loved to get a belly rub. When I gave him one, he would get a blissful expression on his face as if he was already in Doggie Heaven (to misuse capitalization).
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Belly rubs are bliss for some.
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When I first saw the title of this, I thought Brenda was referring to Mike Huckabee’s band.
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Oh, God, I forgot about that. I need to forget it again, please.
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Before we switched to a system where the physicians could enter their orders directly into the hospital computer, the doctors would have to write out all of their orders by hand and we would have to enter them in the computer. The first time I saw an order to irrigate a patient’s wound, it looked like the doctor was ordering us to irritate the patient’s wound instead of irrigate it.
Also, since we are a teaching hospital, we get a lot of residents and interns who have just graduated from UAMS or some other medical school. They were bad about using too many acronyms in their orders to save time, effort, and energy when they still had to write them out by hand. One of these future doctors-in-training got mad at me one day and complained about me when I converted their acronym to the name of the disease by typing it out. I am a member of the employee union at the hospital where I work and I had to ask the union steward for help because this resident was trying to get me fired. After the steward talked to this future doctor-in-training, this person refused to ever work at a unionized hospital ever again.
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Before we switched to a system where the physicians could enter their orders directly into the hospital computer, the doctors would have to write out all of their orders by hand and we would have to enter them into the computer. The first time I saw an order to irrigate a patient’s wound, I mistakenly thought the doctor was ordering us to irritate the patient’s wound instead of irrigating it to prevent the would from becoming infected.
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Since we are a teaching hospital, we get a lot of residents and interns who have just graduated from UAMS or some other medical school. These were some of the worst offenders for using acronyms when they still had to write out their orders by hand because it saved them time, effort, and energy.
One of these future doctors-in-training got mad at me one day when I converted the acronym to the name of the disease by typing it out. This future doctor-in-training tried to get me fired and I had to ask the union steward for help. I have been a member in good standing of the employee union at the hospital where I work for many years. After the steward talked to this future doctor-in-training, this person refused to work ever again at a unionized hospital.
I typed out the name of the disease because I do not like using acronyms.
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Speaking as another bass player, I remember that Huckabee played bass with his band and that is mainly why I remembered it.
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Also, I would like to apologize for accidentally and unintentionally posting the same comments twice.
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I used to blog-spar with an engineer who was highly educated but also seemed somewhat dyslexic. When he “. . . shuddered to think . . .” he would write “shuttered.” Anyway, he had the irritating habit of using all-caps for emphasis. To me, it came across as SHOUTING.
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When it’s just the odd word in all-caps, it doesn’t bother me overmuch, but whole lines of text, or worse, the entire post … ack! That’s a wall of text that’s too hard to read.
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