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When a character drops a letter in dialogue for the first word of a sentence, would you use a capital letter for the remaining part of the word?
E.g.:
Farmer Hinkley sidled up and gave the boys a bag of food each. ‘You can stroke Roger. ’e loves it, 'e does.’
Comments
Do you do that, question and doubt yourselves?
(edited to say 'me too' referred to doubting and not stroking)
*squeals with delight*
:-\"
We are of a delicate disposition here on TB.
This is a children's book so you'll be pleased to know I removed the bit where a nurse said she was late for a rectal examination. Hubby said it was hugely inappropriate, so she went off to deal with chilblains instead.
It's barely past 9, TN. Far too early for any such stuff.
:-O
Then I was rudely squashed.
So perhaps you could find something which is hilariously unlikely? i'm not sure chilblains are funny to a child who might have had them... more to rescue a man whose toe has been swallowed by a parrot?
Philip Ardagh treads a fine line between what is and is not acceptable, with suitably hilarious results.
i am willing to accept all blame in this matter. As long as I get royalties.
So, I should take out the scene of beating to death with a hammer? Damn it.
*Tuts*
Right - back to the weirdness!
You could argue that there ought to be a capital after the fullstop, but E is not a word, and nor is 'E; it's an abbreviated form of He, in this instance. It's that apostrophe that makes all the difference.
It's up to the individual, but I'd go lower case.
Charles de Gaulle would be:
De Gaulle had a moustache.
There’s no obvious mention of TN's query in Hart’s (or even ’art’s and ’Art’s). However, Henry Cooper was known as Our ’Enry. You obviously can’t rely on newspapers to get that right, but the Guardian’s pretty good and I know many authors who have adopted its style guide.
So, on that basis... you should use a capital letter, irrespective of what the apostrophe is replacing. If Hart's and the Guardian say use one, who dares to argue? Authors! They will argue.
I’m finding an increasing number are sending me their own style guides because their writing doesn’t conform – or the author doesn’t want it to conform.
So, as I said above: I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.
*loses sleep over it*
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/48048/should-initial-es-after-h-dropping-be-capitalized
At least if an author makes an informed decision based on an established style it's supportable. Even if they then disregard it, because it's against the style they're creating, it's based on knowledge and not a whim.
This is why you will see both. Who is right? Who is wrong?
The fact that TN cares enough to query it makes her choice right, irrespective of which one she uses.
'You can stroke Roger - ’e loves it, 'e does.’
Solved!
I wouldn't use the site as a basis for deciding an argument either - it's there to demonstrate that there is an argument.
Somewhere else I've got:
''s not our fault.'
Also tried it as:
's'not our fault.'
And with a capital letter...
[i]It's not[/i] has no apostrophe between it's and not, so don't have one in the abbreviated version.
Capital as before - I'm not going there!
The fudge this time could be "Well, 's not our fault."