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 ...
very good!
“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? “
We don’t. Capitalization, to turn a noun into a proper noun, is a sign of respect for the thing described by the noun.
For instance, I wouldn’t write a letter to mr. (insert author’s name here, in lowercase).
People who think it’s silly to capitalize Universe, Men, Creator, apparently have no respect for the nouns they criticize, and a lack of proper English education. (or according to the author, a proper english education)
That’s the only ‘logical’ conclusion one can come to.
“When exactly did “uppercase” become a verb? Maybe the same day “costed” became a word...”
Or “pleaded”. Geez, that one began to appear in newspaper articles years ago, then in all media. It drives me crazy.
THIS GETS MY VOTE FOR BEST COMMENT OF THE THREAD.
“As a Liberal, he is an anti-capitalist.”
Cudos! You are a true wit (and not a nitty one:-))))
on direct->one direct. iPods are not good for typing
He knows. They all know. But they don't want the connection to TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY. If most of the public was 'informed' what TEA stood for, they would join up.
They want the 'mental' connection of the uninformed public to be made to Tea Baggers.
It, like most everything they use and do, is a psychological manipulation trick probably used since the caveman days, but turned into a fine art by the Advertising Industry.
It is the reason Anderson Cooper made the original statement. It was planned, written into the script, by experts at manipulation.
We capitalize Other Parts of Speech, too.
Because it’s Fun, and we have Senses of Humor, unlike Miserable Mentally Ill and Evil leftists.
So There.
Very well then. From now on I will capitalize Flea Baggers when I speak of liberals.
The jOURNOLISTS all got together, many moons ago, and decided that the public was so stupid, they would confuse 'pled' with 'bled'.
Ergo, pleaded.
I plead guilty to occasionally using "uppercase" and "lowercase" as verbs, being a computer programmer and getting tired of commenting "force to uppercase" etc.
But a question for you: Given that "capitalize" means to force the first letter of a word to uppercase, what would the correct verb be for the reverse, taking the first letter of a capitalized word back to lowercase? "Decapitalize"? "Socialize"? (joking)
Serious question though... am I forgetting that there really is a term for that?
“From now on we should never capitalize obama.”
Since ‘08, I usually refuse to write his name at all - I just call him BHO and only capitalize that to emphasize the middle initial.
If we go with the assumption that the author really doesn't know why to capitalize a PROPER NOUN, it's called lack of education.
Those who understand the reason for capitalization, and remove it, do so as a sign of disrespect.
Hence, obama.
I think the 'pop' term for it is 'Dissing'.
We are alarmed by the Pelosi/Reid/Obama spending, and we are trying to RAISE CAPITAL whereever we can.
Cheers!
Cheers!
I wonder if this author ran this by the dnc ?
Or the wh.
“The jOURNOLISTS all got together, many moons ago, and decided that the public was so stupid, they would confuse ‘pled’ with ‘bled’.”
Well, that explains it, ‘cause I’ve often wondered why they haven’t started using the word “bleeded”. Guess I just figured they never learned verb tenses in school.
Seems John Lachman was educated beyond his intelligence.
“Seems John Lachman was educated beyond his intelligence.”
A variance on The Peter Principle, for those old enough to remember that (for those too young, look it up :-)
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