Posted on 11/01/2010 9:53:43 PM PDT by smokingfrog
If he becomes governor of Colorado, Tea Partier Dan Maes will remind citizens that "freedom originates in a Supreme Ruler of the Universe," according to his Web site. In her campaign materials, New Jersey congressional candidate and Tea Partier Anna C. Little rhapsodizes the "inalienable rights by our Creator, among them Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" and touts strict border control as "the first step in the process of regaining control of our Republic." As you read these sentences, your first question is surely: Why do these and other Tea Party candidates hold the rules of capitalization in such contempt?
Capitalizing heavily today is, then, like wearing a tricorn hat or calling your interest group the Tea Party. The point is to hark back to better times, to establish your politics as more authentically American, and to associate yourself with the Founding Fathers. "To restore America we need less Marx and more Madison," Glenn Beck likes to say. More Capitals, less Das Kapital!
What capital-ist Tea Partiers fail to realize, however, is that their orthography imitates not Thomas Jefferson and James Madison but the far-less famous Timothy Matlack and Jacob Shallus—a couple of secretaries. No one played a larger role in crafting the Declaration and the Constitution than Jefferson and Madison, respectively, but it was Matlack and Shallus who hand wrote the official, signed versions of these documents and freely recapitalized them as they saw fit.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
JUST LIKE TODAY - THE FOUNDING FATHERS WERE MAKING A POINT TO THE EXISTING RULERS. AND USED CAPS TO EMPHASIZE THEIR POINT.
(And the one time I can post on FR in all caps without getting YELLED at!!)
I’m think I know what the guy’s problem is. As a Liberal, he is an anti-capitalist.
Because we are more international and well-read, and take our cues from great English literature as well as other languages where all nouns are capitalized. That’s Why.
Maybe the reason that they use uppercase letters for referring to God is one of respect.
You can extend any logic to absurdity, but never faster when it stems from false premises. I'd be perfectly happy to have had the author cite even one example of where the "Tea Partiers" suffer from an overuse of capital letters that is not a direct quotation from a historical document. One single example that might serve to rescue this train-wreck of a piece from inanity. There is none, only an elephantine attempt at wit in this:
"To restore America we need less Marx and more Madison," Glenn Beck likes to say. More Capitals, less Das Kapital!
I will be charitable and assume that the author actually does understand the differences between Marx's Capital and that word applied to orthography, but it wouldn't be the way I'd bet if money were involved. Either way, Beck never said it. And so to the main point: absent a concrete example of the "Tea Partiers'" preference for overcapitalized text this screed is merely a tedious and rather clumsy attempt to conjure academic standing for a juvenile linking of the author's political opponents with 18th-century illiterati instead of the Founders. Our snoring isn't at the two-penny erudition, it's at the boredom.
Losing leads them to fixate on what words we choose to use caps for? LOL
If I knew it Bothered them SO much I’d have done it More Often.
Posts in all caps should be allowed if accompanied by a picture of Mel Gibson (playing William Wallace), face painted blue, yelling. Will anyone second the motion?
One more suggestion. From now on we should never capitalize obama.
The ‘TEA’ in TEA Party is an acronym. Why isn’t this author bright enough to capitalize the letters? /s
And there you have it. The point of the article, as illustrated by this single comment.
I suggest Capital Punishment...
Because most Tea Partiers are unemployed Real Estate Agents who lost their asses in the Real Estate Market.
Twist is theirs objective...
Punctuated by Dangling his Participles in an old Manuel Typewriter.
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
They just don’t get it, do they? It’s for Emphasizing Those Things that Require Emphasis, Now More than Ever :-))))))))
The 'reason' is (1) obvious to most of us, and (2) apparently beyond the pay grade of this journalist/reporter/blogger... whatever.
They're called Proper Nouns. Different from lowercase nouns.
It's so simple, even grade school children know this.
I don't know what is taught now.
“and i want to know why yankees put an er at the end of alabama...”
and africa, america, anything ending in a short “a”. guess that’s just the way they roll :-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.