American Language Supplement 2 (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
PUNCTUATION, CAPITALIZATION, AND ABBREVIATION 413. [In the first draft of the Declaration of Independence nature and creator, and even god are in lower case.] Sometimes, indeed, small letters appear at the beginning of sentences and even paragraphs.1 But Franklin, a conservative in this field as in so many others, stuck to capitals for all nouns, whether proper or common, to the end of his days, and wrote to Noah Webster from his deathbed, in 1789, protesting against the growing use of small letters. He said: In examining the English Books that were printed between the Restoration and the Accession of George the 2nd2 we may observe that all Substantives were begun with a capital, in which we imitated our Mother Tongue, the German. This was more particularly useful to those who were not well acquainted with the English, there being such a prodigious Number of Words that are both Verbs and Substantives and spelt in the same manner, tho’ often accented differently in Pronunciation. This Method has, by the Fancy of Printers, of late Years been laid aside, from an Idea that suppressing the Capitals shows the Character to greater Advantage, those Letters prominent above the Line disturbing its even regular Appearance.3 Charles J.
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