A couple of you have asked me, among other things, why Internet should be capitalized. That’s a really, really good question. Lots of people leave it in lowercase. Who makes up these stupid rules, anyway? Who cares?
It came to pass, long long ago, that there was a war between Ephraim and Gilead. A bunch of Ephraimites were trying to get past Gileadite guards, and the Gileadites couldn’t always tell if these guys were enemies or not. Then, someone had a great idea: every man who tried to cross enemy lines had to say the word SHIBBOLETH. It turns out that the Ephraimites spoke a different language than the Gileadites, and they couldn’t pronounce the SH sound. So, a Gileadite could say shibboleth without blinking an eye, but every time an Ephraimite stuttered, “S-s-s-sibboleth?” a Gileadite would come and lop his head off. This is the end of the story. (See Judges 12. I didn’t make this stuff up).
Um, ok. What does that have to do with anything, Sarah? As it turns out, the word shibboleth is now used to describe any language choice that marks a person as ignorant, unaware, or uneducated. Whether we mean to or not, we judge people based on the way they write. Read a paper full of speling erors and yull probly think who ever rote it was dum or carless or bothh. Not too long ago, I passed a sign in the RB telling me that an office had been moved to the new EDITION (not addition) of the Tanner Building. I wasn’t trying to be critical, but an automatic cringe-reflex went off in my brain, and some sort of judgment (ranging from someone didn’t proofread that sign to someone is a MORON!) had been passed.
Sometimes I correct picky things—always capitalize Internet, for example. It’s the rule. But who cares? Who decides what the rule is? The truth is that the rules are often a load of BS some grouchy dead guy flipped a coin over back in 1732. I’m serious. Somebody made up a bunch of rules, and that was that. The “rules” don’t always make sense or sound half-decent, yet they are THE RULES. So why follow them?
You can thank this guy for lots of the rules you hate.
You follow these rules because they are the set standards by which you will be judged. What it comes down to is this: Knowledge is power. You need to know what the rules, because otherwise, you can’t make educated choices in language. When you know a rule, you can choose whether to keep it or not. If you don’t know the rules, your ignorance will come back to bite you. In your field, you’ll write the word Internet countless times. People know that, until the powers that be change their minds, capitalizing Internet is the standard rule. If you break it, people will assume you don’t know the rule, and your credibility will be hurt. Leaving it as internet is a shibboleth in your field. Type internet, and people will assume you are dumb, careless, or a dangerous combination of the two. And in today’s competitive market, you don’t want potential employers or clients to pass that judgment on you.
There are times when it is actually better to break a conventional rule. How do you know? Consider what is most comfortable for you and what your audience will most readily accept. I won a t-shirt last fall that said I CHEER FOR BYU AND WHOEVER IS PLAYING UTAH. That should read whomever—but who would actually wear a shirt with whomever on it to a football game? In this situation, both the speaker and the audience would have felt artificial following the grammar rule, so whoever was the better choice. But the best usage choice, in my opinion, would be to find a “correct” way of saying the same thing that wouldn’t irritate grammarphobes like me: I CHEER FOR BYU AND ANY TEAM THAT BEATS UTAH would have been great on that shirt. Here’s another example: I start sentences with and and but all the time, even though it’s against a rule to do so. It feels natural to me, though, and I don’t think it bothers any of you. In a formal paper for one of my lit classes, however, I’d never dream of doing that. Dr. Ford would lop my head off.
It’s all about being aware of (1) the standards and (2) your audience. This semester, I encourage you to read my corrections and suggestions carefully to learn the rules, then, with that grounding, make smart audience/speaker choices as you write.
Sarah
