Capitals in M&D

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

My only quibble is that "not standardized" does not necessarily equal 
"random." I doubt that the writers you cite would have described their 
particular choices of what nouns to capitalize as "random." I would guess 
they were likely following a scheme that made sense to them -- a personal 
"code" if you will.

Steve Maas

Okay, let’s randomly select a page:
387 (these are the capitalized words, in order)

“Innocence Mitzi Scullery Boys Hair She’s Woods Blades Danger Souls Yet English Fisher-Boys Snow Inn’s Adonises Armand Paterfamilial Slack Louts Lately Winter She Chores Armand Kitchen Luise Fundamentals Soon Arcana French Haute Cuisine Poisoner Attitude Contempt Thousand Pot Le Gastreau’s Encyclopedia Pot-Lid Hobby Horse Armand’s Arrangement Off Pot Moon Phases Voltaire’s Gas As-tronomers The Rev The Frenchman With Lords Supper Food I I Body Blood Christ Bread Wine Eucharist Doctors Haimo Halberstadt Forms Gods Mercy”

Good luck!!!
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Steve Maas" <tyronemullet at hotmail.com>
> My only quibble is that "not standardized" does not necessarily equal 
> "random." I doubt that the writers you cite would have described their 
> particular choices of what nouns to capitalize as "random." I would guess 
> they were likely following a scheme that made sense to them -- a personal 
> "code" if you will.
> 
> Steve Maas
> 
> --Original Message--
> 
> Tim Strzechowski Wrote:
> Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization rules were not as standardized in
> the eighteenth century as they are now.  Consequently, the writings of
> Defoe, Richardson, Swift, et al (which are partly the model upon which
> Pynchon based the M&D writing style) in general follow a random
> capitalization method.
> 
>