Monday, April 23, 2007

Mystery #172 - Capitalization?


Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe
Mystery #172 - Capitalization?

I like the word llama. It's intruiguing, offbeat, edgy. It appeals to me. However, I find a certain issue with llama at the beginning of a sentence. I mean, do we capitalize the first "l" but leave the second to fend for itself, as grammar rules would have it? That just creates this funky, off-kilter look that doesn't sit well with me. Capitalizing both doesn't work either, as that gives me the audible thought of some guy screaming "LLLLL! ama" which in itself says a lot about my thought process.

No, I think the only reasonable explaination is to leave both l's lower-case. I don't think llamas are small animals, but if we could somehow figure out how to swing that one, we'd have a rule and some pretty cool justification for it, too. Just one more thing to make it harder on foreigners learning the English language.

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