Re: Buddy's house style
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Sun, 01 Mar 1998 01:22:01 -0500
> So tim (thanks for your help in advance on this one!), are you saying that
> caps are an alternative italics for jds? will
Yes, another way of emphasizing words without using italics (which
generally mean a stress in a sentence) or bold (which is used in word
processing and textbooks but not often in fiction), but with a different
shading. It's a verbal tic that -- I think -- one gets used to. It's
partly ironic, partly sardonic, partly emphatic, and very self-conscious.
The closest literary device I can think of -- and I want to emphasize that
I don't think they are related, except to the extent that they are extreme
and attention-grabbing -- is Eugene O'Neill's use (in "Strange Interlude")
of a character speaking his or her thoughts out loud, which are not heard
by the other characters. But again, I'm not comparing them; it's just that
at the moment, "Strange Interlude" comes to mind.
It is a certain kind of self-reflexive gesture, a wink at the audience, and
a shorthand way of indicating Something of Great Importance. Which is
funny, in a way, in two ways that come to mind. One is the outmoded style
of writing English with a German influence (nouns being capitalized), and
the other the kind of writing we see in Philip Roth's "Goodbye, Columbus,"
when Brenda's father writes her a letter which seems to have been meant as
well-intentioned but poorly constructed (which, unlike in Salinger, lends a
kind of pathos to that element of the story).
I'm not sure if I've covered or or confused it, but if I have done the
latter, there will be no shortage of people who will let me know -- which
is How It Is Supposed to Be, eh?
--tim