Interesting Op Ed piece

[Tedlark]

I read an Op Ed piece today, May 29, 2018, in the Chicago Tribune and I thought I would share a summary of it. I am guessing that the Anything and Everything forum would be more appropriate than the Strategy forum.

To summarize:

The piece was titled "Trump's bizarre understanding of Capitalization is Strategic" and the author is an associate professor of religious studies at James Madison University. I understand JMU is not Hahvaad but it isn't a small JC either.

The author writes that rule-bound English speakers capitalize only titles, proper nouns and a few other exceptional words. But for President Trump (and one or two notable posters in our sacred forums) unnecessary capitalization of words boils down to flat out abuse of letter case. More important, unlike misspelling a word or forgetting a punctuation mark, erratic capitalization is a rhetorical technique with a specific function, long exploited by faith healers and self-help gurus. They, like Trump, understand the power of capital letters to project charisma and importance, asserting prophetic authority without the need for evidence or argument.

The author continues, put differently:Initial capitals make words and ideas seem Really Important. They are to meaning-making what flag pins are to patriotism and gold-plating is to value - cheap signals of depth and quality that are somehow taken seriously by enormous numbers of people. This capitalization technique is common in get-rich-quick and quack medicine books desperate to sell readers on the Truth of their claims.

I could go on but I'm not a Ramblin Guy, I just wanted to post a summary of an interesting Op Ed piece. Full disclaimer: I read The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun Times, WSJ, USA Today, daily along with a couple other local newspapers. I'll pick up a copy of IBD and the NYT when the mood hits me.

[New2vp]

For anyone who missed it, this was the study that my previous post referenced.