Use capital letters for proper nouns. Avoid them for common nouns.
Proper nouns are the names of things. So use capitals for the names of people, places, months, days of the week, companies and so on. Don’t use capitals for common nouns.
People run into difficulty with capitals because there’s a temptation to use them for important words. In business writing people often use capitals as a way of avoiding offending someone or something by implying he or it isn’t important.
Another difficulty is with titles. Newspapers typically use a capital letter when the title comes directly before a person’s name but not otherwise.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key is correct, but it would be the prime minister’s desk.
In his book Newsman’s English British newspaper editor Harold Evans says;
“Avoid using them unnecessarily. The Parks Committee, but subsequently the committee. The South West Regional Hospital Board, but then the hospital board.”
One piece of advice I had early in my career as a journalist is: “If in doubt use lower case unless it looks wrong”.
Lastly, do not use capital letters for emphasis and avoid writing words in all capitals.
One thing I absolutely HATE about TradeMe is that I filled in fields saying that I don’t allow pickups and I’m not open to offers and yet all week long I’ve had annoying fools sending messages for both these things. And I can see these people are major online traders.
My motivation for using TradeMe to sell the old tech from my cupboard is about recycling not about making money (which I send to good causes). I’ve noticed if I price low, traders will buy and resell my items at many multiples of my price. I have mixed emotions about this.
“Affordable” is one of the weasel words used by marketing people. What they hope you’ll read is “this is cheap”, what they actually mean is “you can buy this if your children miss out on essentials”.
It’s not a profound or original thought, but I’m overwhelmed at how many excellent pie makers there are in New Zealand. It’s something we do really well.
Yes, Australia is good at this too, their best are up there, but here the general standard even in modest looking suburban bakeries is high, often gourmet.
In urban areas you are rarely more than 15 minutes from great pies. Where I live I can count at least six first class establishments within 20 minutes.
For health reasons I have to limit myself to no more than two in any week, but the temptation is strong. What a way to go.
I love to fix broken things. My daughter gave me her stick vacuum. Turns out the problem is the battery, found a replacement battery, but it costs more to buy the replacement and pay for shipping than the price of a new vacuum. This is why landfills are full.
How bad is it when a New Zealand company INSISTS on a mobile phone number before you can order online, but will only accept numbers in the international format but without the + part of +64. Having to guess the required format is a customer usability nightmare.
Here’s an unpopular option that won’t win me many friends.
Nine times out of ten if you are driving around New Zealand and you see a sign that says “museum”… just carry on driving, if you need a break, find a cafe. They are usually good, the museums are not.
And we have a live cross to our relaxation correspondent…
For years I have resisted Apple’s offer of a three month free subscription to Arcade… I just can’t be bothered.
The thing about New Zealand is that you are only ever one Lotto jackpot away from being financially set-up for life.
A confession: I was too much of a coward to watch the Black Caps test match. What little I saw made me want to hide behind the sofa like I did when I was six years old and the Daleks were on TV.
I’d like an AI service that could eliminate all incoming Black Friday spam emails, texts and webpage interstitials.
In 1970 I graduated from primary school to what was then called a ‘secondary modern’. Unlike the rest of the UK, Surrey had yet to switch to comprehensive schools. I had a weird form of dyslexia and couldn’t pass the exam to get into a grammar school.
On day one, a senior teacher gave us what can only be described as a demotivational speech:
“You’re all too stupid to get into a real school, so you are here for five years. If you work hard, you’ll get a factory job. If you do some work, you’ll sweep the streets. The rest of you will go to prison”.
I’m not kidding. This was my first day at the big school. I was 11 years old.
Has the angstrom gone out of fashion as a unit? I saw the word today in an old physics book and realised I had otherwise seen it in years, maybe even decades.
Do people still have elevenses?
Had a dentist check up appointment this morning. For the first time since I came back to New Zealand from Australia in 2004 there was zero dental work. Not a sausage. No charge either.
Perhaps I should buy a Lotto ticket.
Today I finally deactivated my Twitter account.
I haven’t used it for two years, but kept it open just in case there was a return to sanity.
Also, there have been important personal messages sent there since I stopped using Twitter. But there haven’t been any for 6 months now
Writing for a newspaper, magazine or newsy online site is like a self-saucing pudding. The byline acts as a form of marketing that gets me more writing work. Hardly anyone knows about it when I ghost write something, so I don’t tend to get a lot of repeat ghostwriting business.
About once a week a flyer, or an impersonal letter, from a local estate agent turns up in my letter box. And I think: “how stupid are you to expect me to trust a million dollar plus house transaction to someone incapable of reading a NO JUNK MAIL sign.”
Eliminated hay fever last year by chopping down the privit bushes near the house. Noticed eyes were streaming so checked and found there are two other varieties of privit still in this garden. Not sure what the previous owner was thinking when these were planted.
I doubt it is a popular opinion, but I feel New Zealand media is spending far too much time on an election in a foreign country.
Sitting here in New Zealand, my strategy for coping with the US election is to stick fingers in both ears and say “LA LA LA” very loudly.
I’m so pleased this had nothing to do with me. This was published in _The Australian _ 15 years ago and spotted by Mumbrella.
So let’s do some role playing. You’re a sub on The Australian.
Your boss has just given a speech about the health of newspapers.
You’ve got to put a headline on the speech.
Do you a) Check the spelling of the word “newspapers” in the headline or b) Not check the spelling of the word “newspapers” in the headline? Remember, your career may depend on the choice you make.
Do people outside the US still care about Chromebooks? Back in the day I’d get huge amounts of local traffic when I wrote about them, then, almost suddenly, crickets.
