FUNKY CAPITaLIZATION iN m&D

[Mark Smith]

Scott Fleisher wrote:
> 
> Despite the snootiness of Mark Smith. . .
> "Jeez.  Here's a theory for you.  Maybe it's JUST LIKE German.  Maybe
> it's the nouns.  Could it really be that simple?  Nah."
> 
> I checked this *obvious* noun theory out.  If it is what Pynchon's doing,
> it is inconsistent.  There are capitalized common nouns on nearly every
> page.  I even looked for some pattern to the lower-case common nouns--I
> didn't discover anything in particular.

Look.  Sorry to sound snooty - or even snotty.  I guess I was just
somewhat taken aback by the notion that there should be anything more to
the whole capitalization thing than a genuine aping of 18C
capitalization conventions of the English language.  As I'm sure you
know, German capitalizes all nouns.  Yep, common nouns too.  Hate to
point out the bloody obvious. I think you'll also find that the
capitalization conventions of seventeenth and eighteenth century writers
of English imitated, but were a good deal less consistent than German -
some nouns capitalized, some not, though abstract nouns tend to rank
high in incidence. Gradually the practice faded out in English, though
not in German, which is what makes typing in German such a bitch. 
Shift, shift, shift!  In other words, the capitalized words will be
NOUNS, as in German, but will be inconsistently capitalized, as in 17C
and 18C English writing of the time.  That's about as much as I read
into it.  Though I may be wrong ...... 
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