When I was in the 9th grade I wrote a book report on the movie "Fletch Lives." I didn't want to do that, but it was an "in class" assignment that I was unprepared for. When I showed up to English class the teacher told us to get started and I hadn't read a book. The kid next to me was writing his on "Fletch," which was apparently a book before Chevy Chase starred in the movie version. So I figured why not and proceeded to describe what I remembered about the sequel.
I'm not sure English ever forgave me. I constantly find myself at odds with it, confused and baffled by things like the difference between an "em dash" and an "en dash." One is short, one is long and both bite at my ankles when I sit down to write.
But when it comes to grammar and writing, our favorite thing as Christians is capitalizing holy words. I'm not sure where in the Bible the proper way to cap words is expressed, but it probably has something to do with Paul. Can't you see the person that transcribed his letters pausing in mid thought and saying, "Whoa, whoa Paul, is heaven capitalized? I mean I don't think it is, but if you want me to throw it a big 'H' as a sign of awesomeness, just say the word."
I don't think we've gotten a better handle on capitalization since then, which is why I prepared a little chart to help if you want to write holy:
Heaven
I don't think we have to cap this but maybe it depends on the context. If you're quoting Belinda Carlisle's song, "heaven is a place on earth," don't worry about it. If you're saying, "I want to go to Heaven," better cap it just to let God know you're serious.
Jesus
Yeah, that's getting a big J.
God
Don't even touch that lowercase 'g' you heathen.
Holy Spirit
Less obvious than God, but still capped. Remember it this way, "The triad, gets mad, if their names aren't rad." And nothing is as radical as a capital letter.
God's Nicknames
Some people think you have to cap all of God's nicknames. They send you emails with things like "Most Holy One, Savior and Father" capped. I don't know about that. You might need to because they're proper nouns or part of the subjunctive or past present. But then, I have the grammar skills of a six year old, so what do I know?
Bible
My mother-in law reads this site, the thought of which at times makes me sweaty, and tells me this word should be capitalized. I always tell her, "I don't see in the bible where it says that it should be." Actually I don't tell her that, but I think about saying that because it's a great little circular logic trap.
Satan
I think you're supposed to capitalize this, but I sometimes don't just because I think lower casing it is like giving the devil the middle finger of grammar. That's just how I roll.
Missional, Relevant, Postmodern
We would take these words to the Prom if we could and slow dance to Peter Gabriel's song, "In Your Eyes," but you don't have to capitalize them.
10 Commandments
This one is funky because you also have to think, "do I write it numerically or spell it out?" I think God and Jonah and Gideon are in heaven playing "capitalization bingo." They watch us and if we cap "Commandments," God yells out, "I have capital C on my chart. I win!" (There's a deep spiritual issue most people avoid - would God ever let you win at bingo in heaven?)
I think there are roughly 900 words I missed on this list but today is the debut of the show "So You Think You Can Dance" and I'm busy thinking of ways to convince my wife that I should quit my job and become a professional breakdancer. Audi 5000.
p.s. Last week we played the game "Bible Verse Arms Race" which was delightful. Tomorrow, I have a new game for you that is going to make that one look silly. Promise.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
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And Bryan Adams medley on AI last night was HEAVEN. Yes, all caps.
Just curious - have you heard about the Chapman family's tragedy? No matter how we "like" or don't like his stuff, this family needs our prayers.
loving this post.
i almost had a subscriber chase me down in a parking lot when she saw in one of my posts that i didn't capitalize the "g" in god.
oops...i did it again.
when i'm emailing or leaving comments such as thus, i never capitalize anything -- holy words or not. i figure god knows who he is and doesn't need validation from whether or not i capitalize his name. this doesn't mean i don't feel the tiniest twinge of guilt about it, like i'm not giving him his due respect, but then i ignore that guilt and continue on with my lower case letters.
i for one, think Jon Acuff probably qualifies, along with Prodigal Son.. and Stuff Chrisitans Like... although i really love how artsy we all are when we slap the world with a little ee cummings being artsy...
you rock, friend.
A couple of things --
First, there are no lower case letters in the original languages. Okay, I don't know Hebrew, but the Greek was certainly WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS (withoutpunctuationorspaceseither)
On the spelling 'Satan' with a lower case 's' I can't understand why Christians have to do that. The name derives from a normal noun, so it's quite in order to talk about 'the satan' with a lower case 's.' When we use it as a name, though, doesn't that just seem mean and nasty? I mean, why should we change our language for the enemy's sake? I mean, he seems to own enough of it as it is! (And Jude 9 might be relevant, but it might not either.)
As a professional editor, I know I am a big nerd, but I must comment on this. Words like Bible, God, and even Satan and Hell are capitalized because they're proper nouns. Proper nouns are the actual names of people or things - writing "hell" is like writing "las vegas" (SCL #202). In the same way that I wouldn't say, "jon acuff is very funny, but his mechanics and punctuation sometimes make me twitch," I wouldn't say "the holy spirit has been leading me through a season of correcting people's grammar" (SCL #243). Sorry to be a grammar/capitalization Nazi (another proper noun), but I just can't help myself - it's literally my job. That being said, it drives me crazy when people capitalize adjectives like "godly" or "biblical." Adjectives aren't capitalized, no matter how holy they may be. Okay, I think I've gotten that out of my system. I'm going to go rip someone's doctoral dissertation to shreds in the love of Jesus and the English language.
PS: (Yes, I am pathetic.) You capitalize God's nicknames for the same reason you capitalize "God." My daughter's name is Schuyler, but we call her Scout for short. We capitalize that, so why wouldn't we capitalize "Alpha and Omega?"
Okay. I promise I am done now. Something tells me you weren't looking for an actual grammar lesson in the comments of this post, and I should quit before I get really annoying (as opposed to mildly annoying, which I'm sure I've already been). Please know I'm not trying to be a jerk or say, "That Acuff boy is so dumb; he can't even capitalize words properly!" It's more like I'm saying, "Hello, my name is Hannah, and I have an editing disease."
As an English major, I always capitalize God, Jesus, Holy Spirit and Bible because those are proper nouns. And grammatically, you can't get around that. As a follower of my bff Jesus, I capitalize those the same because it gives Him (notice the capitalization) mad props for being who He is. And I also never give satan the satisfaction of a capital letter (and I'm so stealing your "middle finger of grammar") which isn't grammatically correct, but faith trumps grammar any ol' day.
As for the 10 Commandments, use "10" as long as you aren't starting a sentence with it, then you have to say "Ten". Yup, I'm a nerd...
I totally can't wait for the new game. Woo hoo!!
PS-I too, am praying for the Chapman family. Cling to the hope you sang to us about so many times...
Proper nouns (like the names of people or places) should be capitalized regardless of whether they are holy or not.
What gets me is when other words, not proper nouns, have to be capitalized if they refer to God or something holy. Like capitalizing He, Him and His if you mean God and God's.
"...but I sometimes don't just because I think lower casing it is like giving the devil the middle finger of grammar."
HILARIOUS.
Hang on just a minute. what about ME?! I mean what about capitalizing ourselves. Normally in keeping with the holiness of it all, I've gotten into using the lower-case 'i', (just alone, not like iLive, iPray, iHandleSnakes) mostly for on-screen stuff, but we could always get the ultra-conservatives to push it to the limit and boycott the capital 'I' like a Sesame Street revolt.
I like the idea of giving the devil the middle finger of grammar. That was a fantastic line.
I have a friend that tends to capitalize every other word when talking about spiritual matters...it gets annoying.
To echo the gang's all here - we do need to keep the Chapman family in our prayers. How awful.
The one that's always gotten me was Lord vs. LORD in the Bible (I'm with your MiL on that one!). I always wondered why sometimes it was in ALL CAPS and sometimes not. Not too long ago it was explained by our teaching pastor in a sermon. But now I can't remember what he told us. It has something to do with which manifestation of the Most High Holy Lord God Of Heaven And Earth being called upon. Or some such...
What about intercaps? Is that a subset of this SCL or its own category of stuff? You know, DivorceCare, RealLife, LifeWay and the coup d'etat of intercapitalization, the intercap/all cap combo, a la StreetLIGHT Ministries.
When I worked for a major Christian publisher this was a huge editing issue. Some of the caps completely depend on your "house style." And our house style was to NOT cap pronouns refering to God. THAT did not go over well with a lot of people so I was constantly having to explain that it was our house style and I had no control over it. There was also a big thing over the fact that in the Old Testament of the NIV the word Lord is put in SMALL CAPS. So not only did we have to know what to cap and not to cap, but also what to small cap. It makes me tired just thinking about it.
Miss Hannah, you had me laughing out loud with your "Hello, my name is Hannah, and I have an editing disease." ;)
I have it too girl. It's so bad, I feel like I'm going to break out in hives when I see usage errors or words spelled incorrectly in any form of print or media.
You need the t-shirt I just got recently. It has flames and says "Good Grammar is Hot". My 17 year old gives me that "my mom is such a doofus" look whenever I put it on.
Hey redheadcsm,
You'll only see Lord vs. LORD in the Old Testament. "Lord" is a translation of the Hebrew word "adonai" means, roughly, lord. "LORD" is not really a translation but just the way the translators render the Hebrew name (not title, like "master" or "maker"). The consonants for God's name are YHWH, but the vowels have been lost. So rather than guess, most modern translations go with the all cap LORD.
Older translations attempt to transliterate (put the word into English letters) it to Jehovah. But the "J" is deceptive. There is no "J" in Hebrew, just a yodh which looks like this: ' Those translators then took the vowel sounds from "Adonai" (The "A" at the beginning is a "consonant" called aleph; underneath it, where vowels go in the Hebrew language, sat a shewa, roughly the equivalent of our upside down e, or schwa.) Putting those vowel sounds with the anglicized Hebrew consonants, they came up with Jehovah, which they probably pronounced "yehowah" (Just think how the Germans pronounce "Johann" or "Volkswagen"). But the truth is, we don't know how God's name was pronounced for sure (probably something like Yahweh). But we know it means "I am what I am".
TMI?
Miss Hannah, you and I are twins separated at birth!! While I was reading this post, I was psychoanalyizing it and mentally pointing out all the same things that you put into writing. English geeks rule!!!!!!
(Note excessive use of exclamation points.)
Well that was weird. I started reading your post thinking the title was "A bizarre relationship with CAPITALISM." I'm like, "what does grammar have to do with capitalism?"
Anyway... about "bible" I heard that since it is a title of a book is should be capitalized. (i.e. Bible, Qu'ran, Old Testament).
I SO do not cap "satan"...(unless I am doing something edit worthy and need to look professional) for the same rebelous reason you mentioned but I never visualized it the way you explained it....hummm.
Have to tell you I have been lurking your site and read it every day now "religiously" and I promise you I am constantly CRACKING up over your stuff.
My husband is always saying...."What was that evil laugh about"...I say "it wasn't evil....it was just....belly laughing."
I felt I should finally give you some kudos. I love your stuff.
Love the crazed church humor, etc.
I too feel so badly for the Chapman's. Thanks for mentioning them. They do need our prayers.
Redheadcsm - I believe that Lord is the word we know as "Lord," like master. This is the same word that Sarah called Abraham, for example. LORD is the name given to God, which means the covenant God, creator of the universe.
I only know that from a Beth Moore study, "The Patriarchs," which I highly recommend.
Redhead, the LORD in all caps is when they're translating Jehovah/Yahweh/I AM. That particular name for God is so important in Jewish culture, and apparently this is Christianity's way of holding onto that.
"I think lower casing [satan] is like giving the devil the middle finger of grammar. That's just how I roll."
And that's why I keep coming back to this site...
I was 3 paragraphs into the post before I realized it was about capitalization and not capitalism.
I was thinking, Christians like capitalism? This should be interesting.
Giving satan the middle finger...I love it!
"Satan
I think you're supposed to capitalize this, but I sometimes don't just because I think lower casing it is like giving the devil the middle finger of grammar. That's just how I roll."
Dude you and I alike! I hate even saying his name sometimes, because I don't want him to think he is more important than he is - which is kinda pointless, because he knows he's a major player in the world. Sometimes I want to just cuss - yes, cuss - him out, but I don't. He'd probably laugh anyway.
"We capitalize that, so why wouldn't we capitalize 'Alpha and Omega?'"
Hey, why don't we capitalize the and in Alpha and Omega. I just kinda feel like we should. Like I mean look satan in the eye and say, "My Jesus is the Alpha AND the Omega. Take that!"
Subjunctive? What is that? hahahah
In the more archaic forms of Greek (such as the one used by Paul), all the letters are lowercase. The only exception is names, which are always capitalized, and the word "God." However, it was only capitalized in reference to the God (Jesus). The New Testament authors would not capitalize the name of a false god, and wouldn't even mention them in the same sentence as the true God.
I disagree in part with "miss hannah" (the grammar teacher) about not capitalizing adjectives. If I have a friend Bill who is acting like my friend John, I could say, "You're being very John-like right now." Or "Johnly." I wouldn't use "johnly" just because it's an adjective. So in my opinion, "Godly" certainly should follow the same rule: we're saying that someone is like God. THE God. Now "godly" would still be a word, but a different word, saying that someone is like god which is a much fuzzier (and different) concept.
Kevin
I LIKE TO PUT EVERYTHING IN ALL CAPS AND END EACH SENTENCE WITH AN EXCLAMATION POINT! THIS CONVEYS THAT WHAT I'M SAYING IS VERY IMPORTANT AND THAT I'M REALLY EXCITED TO SHARE IT WITH YOU!
molly d - so fun to know about diff publishing house styles. i always thought it was helpful to cap god's pronouns (He created..)because of those pesky ambiguous pronouns when everyone's begatting, for example. easier to track who's speaking when He speaks thus...
and of course, us bible snobs call the NIV the nearly-inspired version :)
miss hannah, know that good grammar is always useful. sweet revenge when the high school age daughters come to me for editing. their english teacher wants precision; more than spellcheck can ever provide. can we just say homonyms!?
"The triad, gets mad, if their names aren't rad."
I cried laughing Jon. I cried.
so, who has a problem with e e cummings?
Anonymous who posted at 11:24AM, that is why I love the new MS Office '07. Its spellcheck feature has a third squiggly underline - the blue line - to point out real words that are most likely not the one you wanted to use in a particular situation.
Anonymous who posted at 9:24AM, you don't capitalize "and" because it's a conjunction. This rule is based off of the title rule: You only capitalize the first word and other important words (sorry conjunctions, you aren't important).
Anonymous (Kevin) from 10:59AM, I can understand your point. As I was writing that paragraph, I was thinking, "But what if I said a band sounded Death Cab for Cutie-ish? I's still capitalize Death Cab's name..." The only thing I can say is that I'm an editor for a Christian organization, and we have all been instructed to not capitalize "godly" or "biblical." However, this may tie back in with molly d's comment about "house style."
I like to capitalize adjectives when they are describing a holy word if they begin with the same letter, because I am a Christian and I like alliteration.
Examples are Great God, Forgiving Father, etc.
Okay, I'm one of those who capitalizes He, Him, and His...simply because it's easier for people to tell who on earth I'm talking about, rather than writing Lord or Father or God everytime I need to refer back to Him. ;-)
My English major mother cringes.
I'm back. This post is a perfect example of how SCL is funny and addicting all on its own. But when one factors in the comments and following discourse, there is a whole new dimension added to the original posting. Your fans rock!
And for the record, I think Miss Hannah could be my new best friend - her grammar review was a thing of English language beauty :)
Go read a Christian grammar book some time. If I remember correctly, they actually list this as a rule in the section on capitalization. For instance, they have a rule to capitalize all proper nouns. Then, they have a separate rule to tell you to capitalize God, Jesus, etc. Is that really necessary, or is it just a way to make the Christian grammar book different than the secular one? I don't know, but I can smell a post on Christian education comin' (pretty please, and throw in homeschooling while you're at it).
can you find a great little circular logic trap to throw my mother-in-law in, please?
pretty please? :)
I almost broke out in a cold sweat a couple of weeks ago when running video at my church. I was putting a verse up on the screen from the NIV, and "he" and "him" weren't capitalized.
I somehow never noticed that before that particular moment... I faced a minor crisis trying to decide whether to "edit" the bible's grammar to make myself more comfortable, or to stick with the text. I just went with the text, and surprisingly got no comments.
Amazing how intense the anxiety can be over a capital letter. Also funny how writing your name in lowercase somehow comes off as "humble"... and writing someone else's in lowercase comes off like an insult...
Great site jon (er, I mean JON)!
"The triad, gets mad, if their names aren't rad."
I about lost it.
Also, I love it when they capitalize the prounouns for God (He, His, You, etc...)
because then I know who they are talking about. Otherwise, I get confused. Lame, but true.
haha! I know a lot of people who have a bizare relationship with capitalization. i's Unforgiveable to use Capital letters for emphasis, if you ask me. but names are ok! and this post makes me laugh!
there are actually christian grammer books?! ugh. i too origionally thought this was a bit about christians and capitalism. i think it could still fly.
To Anonymous,
I have a problem with E E Cummings because contrary to popular belief, he never actually wrote his name entirely in small caps. That was popularised by other people and he didn't like it, he thought it was cheesy. Unlike his poetry, of course which was evokitive and very clever. And it showes us all how much we rely on syntax, grammar, and capitalization.
peace,
-rog
lol, i totally don't capitalize words associated with the devil!
for me, it is very much like giving him the finger.
but i do capitalize the first letters on words associated with God ( <-see?)...even if i don't capitalize anything else
to me, it's kind of a way to honor Him...
but i don't think it's a big deal if others don't...
I have a habit of capping He, His, Him when referring to God. Sometimes i do brochures for my church and a staff member edits them to lower case... i try to secretly add the capitals back before the final print. God's awesomeness deserves capitals!!!
lol
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