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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   5140 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 24, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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I call this "constitutional writing". Only the capitalized verbs throw me off.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Very infrequent capitalization in English only for some proper nouns is very much a 20th century thing. Many 19th century texts capitalize many more words than we’d do today, earlier texts even moreso. The Wikipedia page on capitalization in English has some good examples, including the constitution, apparently it wasn’t until the very late 19th century that it really faded almost completely.

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