# Grammar question, punctuation.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-punctuation/482825>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 24, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-punctuation/482825 "2009-01-24T21:13:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2009, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-punctuation/482825/41 "2009-01-26T02:12:25Z")

</div>

> [@Starving\_Artist](#):
>
> My favorite **Exapno** paragraph of all time. 😃

Thank you. Although I prefer “I now present you, Exapno Mapcase, with this $100,000,000 check.” 🙂

> [@Reply](#):
>
> So you’re saying English is just a pop culture phenomenon, dictated by whoever the pop-writer-du-jour happens to be? That works for me. Music, art, movies, etc. are often decided the same way… by popular opinion. It’s a language of the people, by the people, for the people, damn it, no matter what the British say!

The British don’t say otherwise. Isn’t there the same split between prescriptivists and descriptivists there? No modern linguistics expert has been anything other than a descriptivist for at least 75 years, BTW, in Britain or the U.S.

And of course I said absolutely nothing remotely resembling giving a pop-writer-du-jour authority. That would be as idiotic as giving some self-styled style expert authority. I say English is similar to science. The consensus of the pool of experts is what counts, not individuals. You dont’ read no good.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-punctuation/482825/42 "2009-01-26T02:36:45Z")

</div>

Associated Press Stylebook  
“Capitalize the first word after a colon only if it is proper noun or the start of a complete sentence.”

Writers’ Hotline Handbook  
“If what follows the colon is merely a list, do not capitalize the first word following the colon unless the first word is a word that would ordinally be capitalized…Otherwise, capitalizing the first word is optional.”

Webster’s Secretarial Handbook doesn’t state a rule, but the examples it shows follow the proper noun-only guideline.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-punctuation/482825.md?page=2)