Wednesday, May 9, 2012

CAPITAL OFFENCES


Sure, capital letters signify importance but that doesn’t mean that everything important needs to be capitalised. That’s where things start to get really silly.

Take managing directors, for example. They think they’re terribly important and everyone else is afraid of offending them so we see much talk of “Managing Directors”, especially in business publications. 

Just because job titles are commonly capitalised, doesn't mean it's correct. The same goes for politicians and heads of state. An easy rule of thumb is to capitalise titles that come before names, but not titles that come after names.


For example:
President Michael D. Higgins was elected in 2011.
Michael D. Higgins is the ninth president of Ireland.

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