Re: Using capital letters

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM>]

At 05:12 PM 8/8/97 +0000, Jennifer O'Neill wrote:
> A question for the weekend.
>
>A tech writer who recently joined my company uses capital letters in
>a way I can't quite follow and am not very keen about. She just
>handed in a manual with sentences like:
>
>The Red LED on the Alarm Panel will be lit.
>
>or
>
>The Display scrolls through the options.
>
>When I asked her about it she said that these were key words.
> I can't see what benefit it is the the user...
>
>What do others think?

It's gratuitous. I'm ag'in it!  ;-)

Quoting from the Chicago Manual of Style, Paragraph 6.62:

        Writers have probably always felt the need for
        devices to give special expression--emphasis,
        irony, or whatever--to the written word. One
        old device, the use of capital letters to lend
        importance to certain words, is now totally
        outmoded and a vehicle of satire.


-Sue Gallagher               http://pw1.netcom.com/~gscale/susanwg/
sgallagher -at- expersoft -dot- com     http://www.expersoft.com

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