By Alin Sengjaroen
Through the flower garden, you see all sorts of plants with various names ranging from Daisies, Violets, Morning Glories,... But in reality, they’re called daisies, violets, and morning glories.
When you open your old elementary-grade science books, you flip through to the astronomy chapter that captivated your ten-year-old self because of the solar system’s sun, the earth, the earth’s moon, and mars. But they’re written as the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, and Mars.
In our Universe, Time is the basis of everything. Time keeps our world moving. We tried to grasp the concept of Time by creating analog clocks, digital watches, pendulums, and so on… We declared them the Truth. We fixed the arms of the clocks to align at the same time with everyone in the world. Time controls our schedule, our lives, and our days. When capitalization refers to something that only exists as one, what about the Universe, the Truth, or Time? Are they not singular and of great importance?
Why are words like Time not capitalized despite their significant influence? How about other words that equally provide us the right to exist? Why is Life itself not capitalized? What about languages that do not have lower or uppercase? Do we still honor the Sun for its light when we call it the sun?
Collage by Alin Sengjaroen
HOW CAPITALIZATION CAN BE UTILIZED
Capitalization Can Technically Be Considered A Literary Device With How It Has Been Used In Poetry And Prose. Sometimes The Word Is A Name. Not Just Any Name Like David Or Emily, But Rather A Completely Made-Up One Or An Object Used As A Name. Certain Words Are Capitalized For The Sake Of Rhythm Or Emphasis. Sometimes The Word Is Of Significance To The Story. You See, This Type Of Capitalization (First Letter Of Words) Is Specifically Called Intitial Capitalization. It Constantly Appears In Both Classic And Contemporary Poems.
But maybe let’s not do that with articles or essays, unless you’re proving a point.
Let’s look at Emily Dickinson’s poems for example.
“There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –”
(There’s a certain Slant of light, (320))
The words are capitalized for emphasis, so we can read aloud and slam into those words as demonstrated:
There’s a certain SLANT of light
Winter AFternoons –
That oppresses, like the HEFT
OF CAThedral TUNES –
When read out loud, it falls into place. Even without capitalization as indicatives of stresses, we would still read it similarly. But some are used to control a specific way of reading that may be unusual. As shown, the last line “Of Cathedral Tunes” is emphasized. Only the second syllable of “cathedral” would be stressed when we read it without those specifics. (We don’t count the first word of each line because most classic authors use it to indicate a new line or sentence.)
This alteration implied that the cathedral tunes are important to the character, the story, or to the author, Emily Dickinson herself. The unique choice of capitalization is in almost all of her poems and has somewhat become a part of her writing style.
But there is a limit to how many capitalized words you can instill into your works. For instance, go back to the first paragraph of this section. All the words are initially uppercase. Do you find yourself subconsciously emphasizing every word? And thus, finding the paragraph hard to read?
When used too often, it can come off as forceful. The poet is controlling how the poem should exactly be read–not giving the reader the freedom to read the works as they would. If for instance, you were to capitalize every stressed syllable in the poem, it loses the quality of a poem because what makes a poem is its ability to be interpreted in many ways. Additionally, stressed and unstressed syllables come naturally when read out loud. Consequently, by doing so, you are almost assuming that the reader is incapable of indicating stresses in syllables which is not a very good look. If poems were to be fixed, with specific rules on how to read them, poems would become bland, stressful, and just, suffocating.
The rule of thumb is to capitalize, what I call, super-stressed words: the kinds that have importance to your story or something that people may overlook. One of the running themes of There’s a Slant of Light is religion and nature. Hence, Heft Of Cathedral Tunes and Slant, Winter Afternoons were capitalized. She consistently uses this in the following stanzas capitalizing Air, Heavenly Hurt, Landscape, and more, which all relate to the mentioned themes. Keeping these symbols consistent will get the message across and prevent the poem from coming across as vague.
WHY ___ SHOULD BE CAPITALIZED
The Universe, Time, Truth, Space, … They are all the fundamental essences of our beings yet these words are originally not capitalized. But we overlook a significance, that in the end, they are merely general concepts instead of specific entities like how we refer to the Solar System’s Sun with capitalization and the Moon refers to the Earth’s Moon and no one’s other moons; Time and the Universe are conceptual terms referring to a giant network that may be beyond our current capabilities to understand and fully grasp the meaning. As stated earlier, the time on our clocks may be inaccurate to the actual Time–maybe there are 25 hours in a day or 13th hours in the 12-hour clocks. The Universe may not be a singular being but it exists outside of our current universe. What defines the space of the Universe? At what point does the Universe end?
However, it is notable that some words such as the Truth can be capitalized in certain aspects according to this meaning. Truth depends on contexts so if the Truth is only one in the specific situation as an answer or solution rather than a philosophical concept like Time then shouldn’t it be capitalized and uplifted as THE Truth? If the Time we refer to is not the time on the clock but rather the actual essence of Time, would it not be referred to with capitalization?
The point here is that languages evolve and that languages will always have exceptions. The current standardized conventions of English might be revolutionalized and hence, some words become capitalized or de-capitalized. In the near future, new words may emerge which may be capitalized at the end instead. Even now, as Time is moving, words are being created and used in our daily lives in the form of slang.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGES
As writers, we naturally study the logistics behind the words of our spoken languages. But rarely do we see anyone bring up the inconsistencies, especially in terms of what words deserve to be capitalized and why. But not to be an anti-intellectualist, as someone deep into absurdism, there is barely any sense in making sense of languages (No offense to linguists). Space and Time are both ungraspable concepts and languages are the same. Maybe that’s why language is not capitalized. But it could also be because there exists more than one language, or that it doesn’t specifically refer to what language. Still, some languages exist with several dialects like Arabic but the word Arabic itself (not referring to any dialect specifically) is capitalized as a single entity.
The evolution of languages takes in the context of our primal human mind. How humans are used to things and are afraid of change. Yet at the same time, we are adaptable: change happens slowly until it becomes noticeable, and only then do we protest, but if all becomes in vain, we learn to accept it as Truth. Capitalization of specific words may only be a literary device now, but if universally used, it would become the standard of the English language.
So, fret not. One day these aforementioned words could be universally capitalized. It all depends on the widespread use that one person or a group may cause. For example, George Orwell’s works greatly influenced literature; the word Orwellian was birthed to represent his writing style. But many take these language rules as the perpetual, unchangeable Truth which is objectively false. If we compare English (or rather, Old English) to the current version of English, the rules, spelling, and word choices are completely different. We only assume that change will not happen because we are afraid of it.
THE BIGGEST FEAR
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment.
Due to this, many of us begin downplaying ourselves for the feeling of security. Even with future endeavors: goals in a specific career path and defining success.
Why? We fear that it will become a regretful embarrassment if You don’t change them from goals to reality by the end. But remember, these goals are what keeps You going. Who knows, perhaps one day You’ll be the one to have the Truth, or Universe capitalized. The Earth’s moon will no longer be honored for being Earth’s. But given to Time as the basis of our livelihood. You, someone reading this, may become a famous, rich celebrity or not and I will never know. Don’t let invisible eyes overwhelm You. Only Yourself can stop You.
Remember: fear is written in lowercase and, regardless, Your name will always be capitalized.
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