LL-L "Orthography" 2005.07.25 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 25.JUL.2005 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography"

Dear Lowlanners and Ron,

during the times I did learn English at school (it's been long, long times
ago...) I guess to remember that we had, addressing someone in a personal
letter, to write 'You' with a great 'y'. This had been the same in G until
that curious 'Neue Rechtschreibung' we are suffering from those days.

My question: what about these rules today? Obviously they didn't survive the
internet-times?!

Kindly regards

Johannes "Jonny" Meibohm

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Orthography

Moin, Jonny!

I get to respond first.  :-)

Unless I'm sorely mistaken, "you" and "your" have not been capitalized for a 
long, long time.  You can see them capitalized in documents up until the 
18th or perhaps 19th century, and then it wasn't done consistently.  Maybe 
your teacher was similarly misinformed or made something up there.  My 
teacher made sure we knew that those words were *not* capitalized as in 
German, and she turned out to be right.  English speakers find it very 
strange if you capitalize those words anywhere other than at the beginning 
of a sentence or in a title.  As far as I am aware, equivalent words are 
capitalized only in a handful of languages, such as German and the 
Scandinavian languages.

I don't want to trigger another orthography reform debate (but I confess 
that the recent German one for me is "too little of a good thing"), though I 
know that it is many people's favorite pastime to "bitch" about spelling 
reforms (as most recently in Germany and the Netherlands).

Not capitalizing personal pronouns seems just fine to me.  Besides, many 
Germans didn't even understand the rule of when and when not to capitalize 
the pronouns.  The rule says that, with the exception of _Sie_, _Ihr_ and 
_Ihnen_ (to be distinguished dem from the third person plural), they should 
be capitalized only in addressing a person in writing, such as in a letter. 
However, look around, and all over the place you'll find capitalization 
where it doesn't belong; e.g., _"Ja, mit Deinen kurzen Beinen", sagte der 
Hase hochmütig zum Igel_, or _... und ich fragte mich: "Was hast Du nun 
angestellt?"_.  Why retain a rule that many people don't know how to follow 
and that really doesn't mean much, if anything, these days?

I understand that English "I" is capitalized only because "i" would 
"disappear" or look very odd.

So there!

Kumpelmenten,
Reinhard/Ron

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