Читать книгу A First Book in Writing English - Edwin Herbert Lewis - Страница 9

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1. Of course all proper nouns should begin with capital letters, and so should adjectives derived from them: examples, Russia, Russian, Jew, Jewish, Gentile, French, German. But the word christian is not always capitalized, especially if it is used vaguely as a synonym for good, righteous, etc.

2. We capitalize the words North, South, East, West, when, because we mean parts of the country, we use the article the before them. Thus, “The extreme West favors free silver.” But if we speak of direction merely, we do not capitalize: “Many people took Horace Greeley’s advice and went west.” Capitalize sections of the country, but not points of the compass.

3. Names of the seasons are not capitalized. Thus, though we write June, September, we also write spring, autumn.

4. In the salutation of a letter, the word Sir is capitalized, but not the preceding adjective unless that begins the salutation. Thus: “My dear Sir.” So in the leave-taking only the first word receives a capital. Thus: “Yours very truly.”

5. One valuable device is the use of the capital to introduce the semblance of a quotation, or what might be called a rhetorical quotation. Note: “I should answer, No.” Here the quotation No is merely rhetorical, or pretended, not real. Or this: “Let me give you a short rule for success: Trust in God and keep your powder dry.” Or this, from Longfellow: “Perhaps the greatest lesson which the lives of literary men teach us is told in a single word: Wait!”

6. In titles of books, essays, etc., the important words are capitalized. Thus: “My theme-title to-day was, A Description of a Person.”

7. Names of Deity begin with a capital, and many persons prefer to capitalize adjectives referring directly to Deity. Thus: “We crave Thy grace.” But this habit should not be carried so far as the capitalization of words like divine, omniscient, when these are not applied to Deity. Rather: “His goodness was divine.”

Written Exercise.—Copy the following, capitalizing where necessary:—

1. After going south last spring I understood better than before what is meant by the new south. The southerners have taken to manufacturing; the cotton is no longer all shipped away. Wealth has multiplied. Immigration has increased—the french are not the only foreigners now. There are colleges and even universities, that compare favorably with those of the north. Are the people wide-awake and ambitious? I answer, yes.

The Reasons for Punctuation.—In early days manuscripts were written “solid,” thus:—

MANUSCRIPTSWEREWRITTENSOLID.

It was found that both eye and ear demanded spaces and punctuation. The reader’s train of thought goes straight ahead from word to word until the punctuation mark warns it that there is danger of misunderstanding if it does not pause. The mark shows that the words which precede it are to be understood mentally as a group, and to be read orally as a group. If the thought is kept in mind that a punctuation mark is a sort of danger signal, many of the difficulties of the subject vanish. “Henry rose, and I with him laughed at the story we had heard.” If that comma be omitted between rose and and, what happens?