Via Cliopatria I found Rob MacDougall's blog (another foreign historian of the American experience).
He writes:
[the early 20th century British author] does have a number of eccentricities that keep things lively. First, his tendency to Capitalize important Nouns (generally a good sign that you are approaching Crankville)
Capitalizing Important nouns is, I think a better sign that you reading something Published Before WW II. I came across the same Amusing (or Irritating?) Tendency in the inter-war sales and advertising advice literature.
Capitalization of mid-sentence letters that were not proper nouns was the lazy man's (they were almost all men) way of emphasizing the points he wanted you to make. Why read The Elements of Style to learn such elementary advice as using the order of the words in the sentence to emphasize things when you can just Capitalize them.
Nowadays we have bold and italic and underline for such things. Use them sparingly.
It's fair to say that business and advice literature dates pretty quickly, but then so do many of the novels of the time period. The stuff we remember (Fitzgerald, Woolf etc) is not at all representative of the fiction of the time.
Lest I leave you with the impression that all writing in the early twentieth century was execrable I should tell you several useful words I have learned.
ultimo is Latin for last month. The phrase "Referring to yours of the 17th ultimo" (or some other day than the 17th of the month) is common in formal letters from the 1920s and 1930s. Of course, with e-mail it's rare indeed you're replying to something sent more than two weeks ago ... but a handy phrase for those moment.
Similarly, the phrase "of the 17th instant" means the 17th of this month, and "on the 17th proximo" referred to the 17th of next month, so might be found in correspondence scheduling meetings.
I am sure you will all find these examples useful in your everday correspondence.
Posted by robe0419 at December 11, 2004 1:29 PM