All-Capital words

How about quoting a couple of sample lines?

-Derek

Well, in the Harry Potter novels, I think she all-caps the words for two reasons. One, to indicate that those words are shouted by the person saying them. Two, because the words are acronyms. The only one I can think of right now is SPEW, the Society for the Protection of Elvish Welfare. Oh yeah, and the OWLs and NEWTS (Ordinary Wizarding Levels and Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests).

Kitty Pryde said:

Well, in the Harry Potter novels, I think she all-caps the words for two reasons. One, to indicate that those words are shouted by the person saying them. Two, because the words are acronyms. The only one I can think of right now is SPEW, the Society for the Protection of Elvish Welfare. Oh yeah, and the OWLs and NEWTS (Ordinary Wizarding Levels and Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests).

Click to expand...

Exactly.

Personally I'd stay away from indicating someone shouting by using all capital words. Mainly because it doesn't look great, AND MAY THROW SOME PEOPLE OFF.

DwayneA said:

I noticed in several books I've read, especially the first four Harry Potter books that some words are printed in all capital letters, especially those in spoken dialogue. Is this neccessary? Why did the author do this?

Click to expand...

We call this CAPSLOCKANGST!Harry.

(Book five, chapter... two? Three? It's the scene in the movie where he chews out Ron and Hermione for being in Grimmauld Place while he's stuck at the Dursleys' struggling for news. She also did it to Snape in PoA when he's chewing them out in the hospital wing, screaming how Potter Is Behind This I Know It.)

Leastaways, that's the term I remember being thrown about.

We also mocked this, some of us. IMHO it indicates an inability to express the anger properly through prose, circumvented by a sticky shift key.

How about "Come down these stairs right NOW!" her mother screamed. would that work?

RJK - That's what italics are for. And that exclamation mark. Why do you need to drive it home with all caps? It's just obnoxious, visually.

So far, I've restricted italics to thought and titles, not screaming.
I agree with the exclamation point. I didn't have it in the original text.

RJK said:

So far, I've restricted italics to thought and titles, not screaming.
I agree with the exclamation point. I didn't have it in the original text.

Click to expand...

I usually use italics in speech for those quiet-angry moments, y'know?

Using capitalisation is a very ugly way to get the point across. You can use exclaimation marks, use a "he shouted" or describe it, if you really want. Harry Potter is also YA, so I'd guess there's a little more leeway there for that kind of stuff.

Hmmm, italics are for emphasis that could be used during screaming. If someone's screaming, I may use an exclaimation or show the person's anger through their own actions or the response of the person at whom he's yelling.

When I see people use both, I read THIS STUFF as yelling and stuff like this as said intensely. Young adult stories, at least, don't seem to mind the use of capslocks to show volume.

I have seen all Caps used in several books and was about to give you an argument, but I first checked a few in my library. The first three I checked use Italics in dialog to stress words, like "A million dollars." and "Look out."

Kitty Pryde said:

Well, in the Harry Potter novels, I think she all-caps the words for two reasons. One, to indicate that those words are shouted by the person saying them. Two, because the words are acronyms. The only one I can think of right now is SPEW, the Society for the Protection of Elvish Welfare. Oh yeah, and the OWLs and NEWTS (Ordinary Wizarding Levels and Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests).

Click to expand...

It appears the language has changed in my lifetime as it pertains to acronyms (and even the meaning of the word acronym has changed - it originally ONLY meant a (pronouncable) WORD formed from the first letters of words - but things that were once considered only initialisms, because they didn't form words, such as FBI, are now considered acronyms).

I remember first hearing the word laser when I was in the 7th grade circa 1970. The librarian knew I was interested in science, and asked me if I had heard of a laser. I said no (reluctantly, as I wanted to always be up on the latest things, and was ashamed I hadn't yet heard of this new thing), and she told me it was a kind of light that melts metal. She then directed me to the latest encyclopedia yearbook with an article on the laser, which I promptly devoured.

But I distinctly remember the word LASER being in all-caps, specifically because it was an acronym (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). This also may have been my introduction to the idea of acronyms, and they were always put in all-caps back then.

Acronyms are now written in lower case unless they indicate some proper noun (such as the FBI I mentioned above), and even that is probably just initialisms that are all-caps - I can't think of an example, but a proper or brand-name acronym that's a "real" pronouncable word only has the first letter capotalized, as with any other proper name). Thus nowadays the word laser is in lower case like any other word.

Here's the Wikipedia page on laser:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser
Scrolling down, there's an image of a handwritten page on the right where the word was coined, with the caption:
"The first page of Gordon Gould's laser notebook in which he coined the acronym LASER..."

I suspect this was changing or had already changed as of ten or fifteen years ago when/before the Harry Potter books were written, so for whatever reason Rowling made those acronyms all-caps, such usage looks odd to modern readers.

I recall reading in high school, perhaps in dictionaries, statements such as "this word means such-and-such, but a while back it meant someting different." Now I've lived long enough to actually see and notice this more and more in real life. Yeah, I'm getting old, but I find this stuff fascinating.

when you're one of the most popular authors in history you can get away with just about anything.
JKR might've typed whole passages in HP backwards and nobody would've batted an eye.

JKR uses the more I guess modern way of expressing shouting in text by using all caps. She doesn't just use it for acronyms. There are whole sentences in Harry Potter (especially in book 5) where HARRY IS YELLING EVERYTHING AND IS REALLY ANGRY AT THE WORLD BECAUSE HE IS A TEENAGER WITH RUSHING HORMONES.

As much as I love JKR, I gots to say I am not a fan of the all caps to demonstrate yelling. I think an exclamation mark is more than good enough for that, as is describing the surrounding circumstances.

So Dwayne, the reason she does it is to show yelling. Whether it is a good idea to do it .. . well that is for you to decide.

John Irving also does this in A Prayer for Owen Meany (awesome book, btw). The titular character, Owen Meany, has a very odd, distinctive voice, and Irving gets this across by having all of Owen's dialogue done in all capital letters.

It was a bit distracting at first, but I quickly got used to it. To be honest, that's the only book I've read where I've seen that much dialogue in capitals. And it was done for a very specific reason. Most of the time, it's done for the reasons stated above, but I thought I'd throw this out there for consideration.

Also because I happen to love that book so incredibly much.

I forgot one amazing use of all-caps.

The voice of DEATH in Good Omens.

But there it was a stylistic choice that worked out very well.

I have one "AAAAAARGH!" in my wip and I'm probably keeping it.
Avoid or use capitalization sparingly.

DwayneA said:

I noticed in several books I've read, especially the first four Harry Potter books that some words are printed in all capital letters, especially those in spoken dialog. Is this necessary? Why did the author do this?

Click to expand...

To me (although I've been wrong before) writing in all capital letters isn't grammatically correct in any writing -- unless, of course, you're indicating an acronym (in that instance, it's all capital letters because they're all the first letters of a proper title). Also, if you think "!" is annoying, you're going to puke when writers start going "I'M DYING!!! I'M SCREAMING!!! ARG!"

It's actually really, really insulting. All caps is the equivalent of telling a reader: you're not smart enough to get this. Let me spell it out for you, wipe the dribble from your face, fasten your safety helmet, etc.

Rowling also uses a plethora of adverb-riddled dialog tags. Doesn't make it good.

That's my opinion on it. I'm sure writers have used the technique and will continue to. I will not.

Do you mean how she uses caps for words like:

THUMP
WHOOSH
CRASH
WHIR

I think it has to do with the book's intended audience. These types of words are 'cute' when you cap them (I find). People seem to forget Harry Potter are kids books. They might have crossed over, but they were still about an 11-year-old boy who goes to wizarding school.

Yes, Death talks in all-caps in all of the Terry Pratchett books. And the golems Talk In Initial Capitals.

But you can get away with more typographical vagaries in comic fantasy, and in books for younger readers, than you can in most other genres.

I use all caps for yelling (or very LOUD IMPRESSIVE SPEECH, like something that would come from a god, you know) at times. I tend to do it to distinguish yelling from REALLY FRIGGING LOUD YELLING!! (Also occasionally for sound effects.)

In my current WIP there is a character who is a Thunderbird. Which means, basically, that he is a bird the size of an airplane. So of course, when he flips out and starts shouting, italics would not cut it.

So I don't mind the occasional CAPS LOCK YELLING!! but as for entire things written in all caps, well, if the character isn't yelling/severely stressing it, or isn't some kind of terribly impressive god/being who just talks that way, then I don't see the point and it gets hard to read.

Granted, I'm not trying to get published so I give myself a bit more leeway. I do admittedly get surprised now and then when I see caps lock in published works. But it doesn't bother me. It just makes me feel better.

tehuti88 said:

... very LOUD IMPRESSIVE SPEECH, like something that would come from a god, you know) ...

Click to expand...

THIS IS THE BIG ONE, CROWLEY.

"Yes I know."

WE'RE ALL COUNTING ON YOU, CROWLEY.

I'll occasionally use all-caps. But, I use them sparingly when a character is really, really angry and simply italicizing and an exclamation point just doesn't provide enough kick.

Also, many of my characters only speak telepathically, and un-italicizing gets weird when the emphasized word is at the beginning of the sentence.