Five Star Friday: Edition #8
Friday, May 30, 2008 Five Star Friday is now two months old! My excitement over this minor anniversary is tempered, though, by my inability to properly capitalize titles.
It has been brought to my attention that my habit of capitalizing the first letter of Every Single Word In A Title is incorrect and should be stopped. The person who so kindly pointed out my capitalization issue directed me to a site that explains capitalization in simple terms and also inquired as to why a writer like myself would not have confronted this issue years ago.
My excuse? Canada's mediocre attempt at bilingualism. In Canada, we tout our bilingual status, yet eight straight years of French language instruction has yielded me little more than the ability to read both languages on the back of a box of breakfast cereal.
How does this have anything to do with my ability to capitalize, you ask? Well, the French have a complicated system of capitalization rules, which mostly states that the majority of words in titles are not capitalized. Between my French and English classes in high school, I lost track of my titular bearings and never encountered a teacher who gave enough of a rat's ass about capitalization rules to bother boring us with them, so here I am, inappropriately capitalizing titles at thirty-five years of age.
Sadly, due to laziness, the following Five Star Friday submissions are rife with my old, bad capitalization habits.
And I call myself a writer.
Oh, right, it's Five Star Friday! On with the show:
"In Which I Am Shocked... SHOCKED..." from Somewhere On The Masthead
"Goodnight John Boy" from 5 Ballerinas Named Moe
"If Jeopardy Were Written By Parents" from The Busy Dad Blog
"L.L. Uncool J(eans)" from That's What She Blogged
"Oops, I Pooped My Pants" from Reality Check
"Me At The Beach. No, I'm Serious." from Ducks Of Happiness
"Rush Hour" from Inner City Snail
"Everyone I Know Is Fat: Day One" from CJ.ESQ
"Shock Therapy" from Boobs, Injuries, & Dr. Pepper
"Playing Ball" from Just Another Ink-Stained Wretch
"Dream On" from Momma's Tantrum
"Sophie" from Okay, Fine, Dammit
"Caught Short" from Killing A Fly With A Ukulele Is Probably The Wrong Thing To Do
"In Flanders Fields" from Sterkworks
"Your Worst Nightmare" from She Just Walks Around With It
"The Art Of Positive Parenting" from Simplynutmeg.com
"Most Spam Is Better Than This..." from June Cleaver Nirvana
"Fragility" from I Should Be Folding Laundry
"Many (Too Many) Meetings" from Tales From The Microbial Laboratory
"My Life As An Internet Addict" from Scary Mommy
"When Fish Therapy Does Not Mean Having Fish As A Regular Part Of Your Diet..." from In The Line Of Wire
"I'll Be Right Here" from Sweetney
"Secret Noodles Supreme-o" from Pocklock.com
"She" from Her Bad Mother
"Practice" from Wild Rumpus
"Time Keeps On Slipping" from Moogie's World
"A Brief Note About Pregnancy" from Mighty Girl
"Godless Sunday" from Godless Sunday
"Let's Not Talk About Sex And Pretend We Did" by Robin Dearing at GJSentinel.com
"Live From California" from Keeping In Touch
Over the coming week, keep Five Star Friday in mind and remember to submit excellent weblog posts that you find, subscribe to keep up with future editions, and grab a button for your website to show off your being featured and/or to spread the word.
Thank you all, and have a fabulous week!
Reader Comments (10)
Yeah! Thanks for the link. Looks like I have a lot of reading to do today...
I grabbed a badge--thanks again.
Oh, what a wonderful site! Thank you for including me - I'm thrilled.
The post from Scary Mommy is hilarious!
Lauren
http://jedetestetravaillerlm.blogspot.com/
Thanks for linking to my Haute Mamas blog. I always look forward to FiveStarFriday ... it's that best compliation!
Schmutzie rocks!
Thanks again for featuring me--what a treat to be among such great writing (I also finally grabbed a badge for my blog).
As for titling: I say do what you want. I tend to capitalize every word in my titles and then some times I'll forget myself and actually do it correctly. I started my blog because in my daily working life I write and edit for a monthly magazine and am constantly watching out for errors. The blog gives me a place to kick back and do writing I can't do elsewhere--but it's also a place where I gave myself permission not to sweat spelling and grammar and proper usage. God knows there are plenty of busybodies out there who keep track of it for me (and evidently for you too).
Whew, long comment (sorry). Anyway, thanks again! --mm
I'm loving the Five Star Friday Honor! Thanks for including me. You're fabulous!
But I'm on here for the wrong reason. My post title was Never Ever Never Ever Typed All In Capital Letters.
When I wrote that blog post, it was and always has been typed as "Me at the Beach. No, I’m Serious".
So I don't know how it showed up as all caps. Maybe a feed reader?
My 10th grade writing teacher said - capitalize first words, last words and all important words in between.
So as much as an honor as it is to be included here, I'm doing a loud flailing 'but but but!!!' defense because it wasn't me! I didn't do it! I swear i did done,; got goooD Gramer~!
Maybe someday I can be a Five Star Friday recipient for something I did do.
Like for the being the best blogger addicted to Lucky Charms cereal. Or the best blogger who hopes my 10th grade writing teacher doesn't incorrectly think I capitalize every letter in post titles.
Because she may know where I live.
Shhh....what's that sound?
Thanks for the link. I was so excited I did a little dance.
Thank you so much! I am honored.
Thanks for the link! And I must read that post on capitalization. However, I too feel that it's all about personal style.
:-)
Old dude here, who was NEVER great at English punctuation---I got now problem with the first letter of every word ina post title being Capitalized-------the idea is to communicate, a writer has to have his own style---be grammerically correct if thats YOUR thing---but hey communicate anyway ya can the best ya can.
PS, no kicking or biting allowed, its okay to jossle me a bit to make sure I am awake, but otherwise no hitting or kicking. ok?