Capitals in M&D
Ya Sam
takoitov at hotmail.com
Wed Aug 9 10:42:56 CDT 2006
There were consistent writers. In the original capitalisation of Daniel
Defoe's 'Roxana' available in some contemporary editions the principle was
very simple and it was sustained throughout the whole novel: all the nouns
were capitalised.
>From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net
>To: "Steve Maas" <tyronemullet at hotmail.com>, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Capitals in M&D
>Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:26:31 +0000
>
>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.
> >
> >
>
>
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