In the sometimes dismal world of social media, I see a lot of people who seem to have never been taught some basic things in grade school about how the English language works. Recently, I’ve seen someone advocating for a point-of-view that most people disagree with. He couldn’t be bothered to begin his sentences with a capital letter.
We writers must use correct English at all times. We can still be colloquial and use slang, but we have to use capital letters correctly, use punctuation correctly, and for goodness sake, use the spell check! One wrong usage in a Tweet, and there may be people out there who will never buy your books because they will assume you cannot write readable English sentences.
Imagine you were an avant-garde, artsy-fartsy type. Imagine you wrote a novel in the attempted literary fiction genre. But, for some incomprehensible artistic reason, you refused to use any capital letters at all. your sentences looked like this. even mary and joe, your most loyal readers, would probably not find it comfortable to read your book.
I personally, if anything, overuse capital letters. That’s because I learned German— in childhood from my mother, in Junior High and High School in the classroom— and in German, all nouns are capitalized. (Nouns? ‘A noun is the name of a person, place or thing.)
Capital letters are like punctuation— they are the ‘traffic signals’ of the written language. People who read regularly are used to mostly correct usage. Texting and social media, especially as they distract poorly educated young persons away from reading books, reinforce wrong usage.
Here is the reality: if you are a writer, you are different, and different rules apply. You are expected to know how the English language works (or whatever language you write in.) Other people can use ‘u’ for ‘you,’ but if you do it, people will presume you are an ignorant so-and-so and not a real writer at all.
The same rule goes for bloggers and would-be influencers. If the tool you work with is language, use it correctly. WITH capital letters to begin every sentence, every proper name of a person or place, as the rules of our language dictate. Yeah, if you are younger than a certain age the dim bulbs you went to school with may mock you for your correct usage. But those dim bulbs are not going to financially support you if you ruin your writing persona with the dim bulb’s version of ‘cool.’
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My books:
Getting More Blog Traffic: Steps Towards a Happier Blogging Life: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086H4FQ4M
Banned Books, Banned Girl (Lycian series.): A girl with an autism spectrum disorder escapes government confinement and works a ghost job removing banned books from bookshelves.: https://www.wattpad.com/story/269878745
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