Wednesday, August 22, 2012

punctuation - ...Capital letter after period(s)?



Excuse my terrible English knowledge, but I have been wondering this for some time already:
What is correct for the next phrase?:





And he was there. alone. sad. and crying...




or




And he was there. Alone. Sad. And crying...





or




And he was there, alone, sad and crying...




On the first and second cases, I use periods for separating the state of the subject. For some reason, I like it to give better suspense. Given the way I am using the periods, should I use Capital letters after them, or not? These periods are pretty much like commas...



... But maybe I am terribly wrong and should never use periods for such purpose? Should I always follow the third case? Just using commas?



Answer



I would write the first word after the period in capital case, as you did in the second sentence you wrote.
The general rule of writing a word in capital case after a period is still valid even if you write a single word and then a period.



In those cases, the periods are used to give an emphasis to the single words. The pause when "reading" a period is longer than the pause used for a comma; for this reason I would not say the periods are like commas, in the examples you wrote.


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