Sunday, June 1, 2014

What Century is this?

People often write "19th Century" or "18th Century" or "21st Century." Why do they uppercase Century? Is a century special?

It's part of an epidemic of uppercasing. I've recently proofread books in which Nearly Half the Words were Uppercased. That's often an example of a Non-Writer trying to be Cool or Someone trying to make his writing seem Important.

Miss Lula Mae Smith hit the Century mark today, it says in the newspaper. She turned 100.

What Century was Shakespeare born in?

She was born at the Turn of the Century. (Of course this makes us wonder which century is turning.)

If you see a story about the movie studio 20th Century Fox, then century should be uppercased.

Most of the time, there's no reason to uppercase century.

EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  TWITTER: EDITORatWORK
ENTRIES FROM THE DOG BLOG

BLOG ENTRIES FROM THE AUTO RACING JOURNAL
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

No comments:

Post a Comment