Sunday, September 8, 2013

CAPITALS or Capitals?



In school in the UK we were taught that only five-year-olds use capital letters for emphasis. The same goes for using more than one exclamation mark. It is not correct, professional, businesslike.
A legal document or court report would not use multiple quotation marks.
A BBC report, like a business report, used to stick to facts. Rhetoric and repetition of words and phrases or  was left to politicians making speeches. Repetition of punctuation marks was not used by adults.
To a coolly detached, impersonal reader who has not yet formed an impartial judgement, multiple exclamation marks and sudden jumps into capital letters are annoying and distracting and suggest that the reporter is carried away by emotion and not giving a news story but an opinion piece, not even a well-argued opinion piece but a rant.
It is not for the newsreader to comment that an event is hilarious or tragic. The comedy awards presenter can say that the no 1 joke of the festival is "hilarious". The family can describe the loss of their loved one as "a tragedy". A news report simply states who, what, where, when, why. The accidental death of an unconvicted, alleged 'murderer', in bizarre circumstances might be a tragedy to their family, a comedy to bystander, a triumph of justice to a third person such as a victim, but a newspaper reporter is like to cause outrage by saying so.  The news report should give the facts without emotion. 
Comment should come evenly from both sides in a court case or any other report.

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