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The Domino Effect

Posted by Smokey Stover on March 16, 2004

In Reply to: The Domino Effect posted by Sathyaish on March 16, 2004

: Thanks a lot, SS. Your suggestion was invaluable. I'll bear it in mind. I'd be interested in knowing what kind of stuff you write, if you are willing to tell me, that is.

: : Sorry to get between the link and the apposite message. I have a comment about capital letters for domino effect. The attitude towards capital letters has changed a lot over the centuries, but nowadays strict editors and pedagogues prefer to reserve capital letters for specific situations, not including common nouns like domino effect. Names (Jesus H. Christ) and proper nouns (India, the Koran), which includes a lot of optional cases, have capitals. Style manuals often give a long list of cases where capitals are preferred. Some writers (including me) sometimes like to use capital letters for satirical or humorous effect, which most editors will reject out of hand. In informal writing I don't imagine anyone gives a damn whether you capitalize Domino Effect or not, but if you are writing for an editor, confine your special marking of the phrase to quotation marks. SS

Suggestion for Sathyaish. When you post a Follow Up (I capitalize here because the editor of the Website does so), after entering your name where it says Name, tab down to the next blank, then tab down or move your cursor down to Comments. In the Comments box, scroll down to the last comment, then below it add your comment, without preceding it with a colon or any other punctuation. Then, when satisfied with your comment, click on "Submit Follow Up." As for the question, what do I write? Alas, now that I am retired I write hardly at all. Like many other garrulous old fogies I occasionally send a letter to the editor of some journal, some of whom refuse to permit me any idiosyncrasies of style. In a former life, I authored some scholarly articles, did some editing and proof-reading, did some re-write editing, mentored one ESL student. The last continues, and has been somewhat challenging to both of us. By the way, you can "be on" a phone extension, or you can say "my extension is ...." or possibly "I can be reached at Extension ...." I don't know who first said "stay on extension so-and-so," you or Harinder, but "stay" is not the word. You can "stay on the line," but that's different. SS

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