All about Words: capitalisation, executive and board papers
Capitalisation guidelines for business writing
One of my pet hates is the overuse and inconsistent use of initial capitals. I think many people were taught that all important words deserved to be capitalised and old habits die hard. The modern trend is for more minimal capitalisation.
There are some specific rules, but the basic rules are quite simple.
We capitalise:
- The beginning of a sentence
- Names of specific people, places and organisations
- Titles of books, plays and legislation
- Official job titles
NB: Capitalisation means using an initial capitalisation. Full capitalisation is the term used when every letter is a capital.
Read the rest of my blog.
Sign up for my online Grammar, Punctuation and Usage course to learn more about punctuation.
What words should you capitalise in titles?
People often don’t know what words to capitalise in titles. Gov.au says to capitalise proper nouns and ‘principal words’.
Principal words are usually all words except prepositions (to), articles (the) and conjunctions (and).
But two American style guides, The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) and AP Style don’t agree about capitalising prepositions. CMOS recommends lower case for all prepositions, whereas AP Style recommends capitalising all words of four letters or more. CMOS makes an exception for prepositions used adverbially or adjectivally, for example, Talk Up Your Business.
Would you capitalise the second word of a hyphenated compound (Self-respect or Self-Respect)?
Sign up for my online Grammar, Punctuation and Usage course to learn more about punctuation.
How to write board papers when your organisation doesn’t have executive papers
I’ve worked for a few organisations this year, large and small, that don’t have executive papers. The problem with not having executive papers is that writers produce board papers that read like executive papers. I call them pseudo-board papers.
With small-to-medium-sized organisations, I can understand their not wanting executives to spend more time writing papers. As one CEO said: ‘There’s no way I’m going to introduce another level of reporting.’ In that organisation, most writers were technical experts and many found writing difficult and time-consuming, taking time away from ‘real’ work.
In larger organisations, the same reasoning may apply, but I wonder if the benefits of executive papers might outweigh the disadvantages of more reporting.
The pseudo-board papers I read included information such as:
- Social media metrics in raw data (e.g. number of ‘likes’)
- Individual safety incidents described in-depth without any insight into trends or action being taken
- All staff movements given with no commentary on the significance of the information
Read the rest of my blog to find out my writing tips.
Readers’ feedback and a question
Hyperlinks
A reader sent a link for accessible hyperlink styles – (look at rules 11-15). She said: ‘Using bold as well as colour would be the simplest way to ensure links are easy to identify when a user experiences low vision (either because they have a disability or maybe are reading in challenging light conditions).’
NB I have changed the colour of my links in this newsletter.
who or whom
A reader said that although Mary Norris described the grammatical usage of who and whom very accurately, she did not make a convincing case for the continued use of whom.
His reasoning includes the following arguments:
- The second person you is the same in the subject and object without causing misery.
- The relative pronoun which manages very well without changing its form to suit case.
He concludes: ‘In short, we really can do without whom. Its misuse is a carbuncle on the face of a dear friend, that is, clear English; and the claim that it is needed is no more than mistaking that carbuncle for a damn’d beauty spot. Out with it!’
Quotation marks
A reader asked where the quotation marks would go in the following sentence, i.e. in or outside the full stop.
It made me reflect on what E-Myth author, Michael Gerber, had to say about many aspiring business owners, “They are technicians who have had an entrepreneurial seizure.”
This sentence is correct because it is a direct quote. The US has a quirky rule about quotation marks with indirect speech – the quotation marks always go outside the full stop regardless of the logic. Read my post on this quirky US rule.
Interesting articles about writing
The top 10 business books of 2018 that all entrepreneurs should read
I have to confess I haven’t read any of them but they look interesting. Find out which ones interest you.
Best books of 2018
I thought I would do better with a fiction list than the nonfiction list above but I obviously didn’t read much modern fiction this year. At the moment, I am reading Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride, which was published in 1993!
What was the best book you read this year?
How to blow a presentation to the C-suite
What mistakes do you think people make? Read the article.
Another word of the year – nomophobia
Nomophobia is the UK’s Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year. Do you think this word will last? Economist.com doesn’t think so. It means an irrational fear of being without your phone or being unable to use it for some reason.
‘Never fails to disappoint’: Roxy Jacenko book pulped after cover misprint
A typo that Allen & Unwin’s proofreaders failed to spot. Find out what the quote should have said. A clue: the right word starts with the same letter! I wonder if a positive statement would have been better. What do you think?
99pc of employers report low literacy and numeracy skills, study finds
This article says that an Australian Industry Group survey of 298 companies across manufacturing, construction, mining and service industries found low levels of literacy and numeracy are affecting businesses. I think they need my online courses!
Quote of the month
‘Simple English is no one’s mother tongue. It has to be worked for.’
Jacques Barzun, French-American historian
