Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with capitalization

I find the nature of this technique Quite Intriguing.

Rhaomi — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:37:34 -0800

What's the deal with Sarcastic Caps? You know The Kind I Mean. Connoisseurs of snark will be long familiar with this Little Trick: capitalizing Certain Words in a sentence in order to express what I guess you would call Sarcastic Importance. (NO, NOT LIKE THIS -- THIS MEANS INTERNET SHOUTING AND MOTORMOUTHINESS.) What I'm talking about is Much More Subtle than that.

I see it All The Time on snarkfests like Wonkette, and have been partial to it myself. It seems to only "work" on short phrases instead of single words For Some Reason.

So, where does this Ubiquitous Technique come from? Does it have a name? And why is it so good at conveying sarcasm?

The best guess I could make is that it's based on the Seemingly Random capitalizations found in Distinguished Documents like the Declaration of Independence (previously), but I don't see how that gets transferred to Sarcastic Internet Writing. Alas, the topic is Sadly Un-Googleable.

Anybody got any ideas?

Why do the French capitalize each letter of their last names?

December — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:40:51 -0800

Why do the French capitalize each letter of their last names? I've noticed that in business correspondence, schoolwork, return addresses on informal letters, etc. the French capitalize each letter of their last names, e.g., Captain CRUNCH, Chester CHEETAH. Why is this so?

What is the History of English Capitalization?

freebird — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 09:41:00 -0800

What is the History of English Language Capitalization? I have been Interested for some time in the Capitalization used in Older English Texts - I think of the style as fading into the "Modern" System sometime in the 1800s, but have No Idea if that is Accurate. Many "Improper" Nouns and even some Verbs are Capitalized, but it often Appears as though there is little System to it all but Individual Aesthetic. Is that the case? If not, what is the Underlying Method? When and Why did it change?

As a fairly representative Example, this Text (via Mefi).

Capitalization Rules and Acronyms

cm — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:57:23 -0800

I'm trying to figure out the proper capitalization rules for acronyms. Best explanation I've found so far is over at NASA. The only thing I'm not clear on is what they mean by "proper name". Obviously, in the title of a document the usual capilization rules apply but I'm talking about in the middle of a sentence. For example, is it "The dynamic host configuration protocol ..." or "The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol ..." and why?

More examples:
* Read-Only Memory or read only memory?
* Personal Computer or personal computer?

Is there a particular set of rules for technical abreviations vs non technical ones?

Maybe this is obvious to native writers but I'm having trouble pinning down the diffrence. Any help would be appreciated.

Capitalization of the web?

kk — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 00:40:03 -0800

The web or the Web; internet or Internet? Do you capitalize them? I'm trying to get a sense of common usage on the net (or Net). Do you, or don't you? And why? As a data point, we don't write the Ocean and the Sky, but some people do write the Moon, and some the moon. I don't care what the experts say; what's the emergent convention? What do YOU do?

Understanding Stock Investing

Ironwolf — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 14:16:17 -0800

As a fledgling investor, I'm confused about a fundamental idea behind stock investing: When I buy a stock, unless I buy it during a company's Initial Public Offering (IPO), I'm actually buying it from another investor who's willing to part with it for some price. So although I'm paying good money for those shares of company ownership, none of it ends up providing working capital for the company itself-- the money they got in the IPO is all they'll ever get from the stock market. So my questions are: What are the market forces that are supposed to keep the company's market capitalization (current share price X number of outstanding shares) in line with a company's actual value (assets - liabilities)? Why are high (or low) stock prices important to companies? Why do companies care so much about "creating shareholder value?"

What's the proper case?

feelinglistless — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:07:02 -0800

Do you dvd or DVD? I'm frequently writing articles about the aformentioned and I'm never sure what the recommended parlance is. Should I say that I'm reviewing the Clerks DVD or Clerks dvd? The first may be right, but those block capitals look massive.

How can I test whether a cell is in ALL CAPS in Excel?

willnot — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 10:25:47 -0800

Excel Question - Is there a way in Excel to evaluate whether a cell contains text that is in all caps as opposed to proper (first letter) caps. I know I can force cells into Upper or Proper, but I don't want to do that, i just want to flag and sort them.

MS Word autocorrect: can I set it to auto capitalize several different inputs into the same output?

biffa — Tue, 29 Jun 2004 10:03:40 -0800

In Word, is there any way to set up autocorrect such that it automatically capitalises different combination? E.g., I want 'member State', 'Member state' and 'member state' to automatically be capitalised as 'Member State', but after putting in the first combination, autocorrect can't recognise the difference. Any ideas?