So I am guessing that that is what recently happened in a letter to the editor of The Times on the subject of the GCSE music curriculum which contained the following:
There [Michael Gove] would find no less than 12 prescribed works by different composers, embracing a Catholic spread of the Western classical, popular & world music traditions.
since I assume that the writer, the Head of Academic Music at Oundle College, did not mean to imply that the Roman Catholic Church (or Catholic religion) was responsible for the spread of these music traditions. I may of course be wrong about that.
When I was at primary school we learned that proper nouns have capitals; lower case nouns were simply common. The connection with the English obsession with class was not entirely accidental – knowing when to capitalise could be a skill almost as arcane as learning the rules of precedence. And although capitalisation does not figure much in the thinking of those who worry about modern political correctness, the sensitivities when it comes to capital letters in politics, religion, nationality & race are closely allied to those which preoccupy grammatical pedants .
Two modern developments have contributed to the relative lack of concern about capitals today.
One is the ubiquity of keyboards & computers. Why use two fingers to type a single character when one will do – especially if those fingers are male?
The other is the preference for cleanliness & clarity in design – no twirly bits on letters & no interruptions to the even flow of a line or block or column or page of print.
Search engines could not work their magic properly if they were sensitive to case – the programming that lies behind this indifference must be impressive & complicated. But not without its own problems, for example when identifying individuals– is MacIntyre the same as Macintyre?
And if computers work better when insensitive to case, how do we teach children that case can ever matter?
Well capitals can still be useful, have an important function to perform, not least in passwords. So by extension & analogy, they can have important functions to perform in human discourse & understanding.
The trick is to know when, & what.
And to use your skill, judgement & experience to interpret the subtleties of meaning. Because sometimes the smallest detail provides a very important clue, which might be overlooked by those whose eyes are less sharp.
After all this I suddenly find myself wondering if those primary school rules meant that I is a proper personal pronoun, leaving he, she, it, we, you & they as improper.
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