Editorial proofreading is not always about applying the spelling rule, or correcting an author’s lack of knowledge of it. It often involves fighting against psychological biases, personal beliefs, and misconceptions about spelling.
There is no better example to illustrate this than the use of upper/lower case letters. That such use is regulated by normative conventions, just as punctuation or accents are, is something that might seem obvious and to be expected. However, practice confirms to me that many people consider the way capital letters are used to be completely personal and arbitrary. The only rule they tend to apply strictly is: if it is important to me, it goes in capitals.
This is what the RAE calls ‘capital letters of relevance’, i.e. words that are capitalised because their meaning is loaded with symbolism and ideological relevance for the writer. They are words that have a subjective value, whether for religious, political or professional reasons, which may not be shared by others.
Translated into common language, if a butcher writes a text on the best efficient meat-cutting techniques, he will put Solomillo with a capital letter; a dentist will write Endodoncia with a capital letter. I can assure you that there is not a single Professor or Associate Professor who does not feel authorised to put capital letters all over the place. The examples are innumerable, infinite, to the consumer’s taste. Anything that the author values personally runs the risk of being ‘capitalised’.
The academic regulations are very explicit in this respect:
‘None of the capital letters of relevance commented on is justified from a linguistic point of view, since they fall on appellative or common nouns, regardless of the associated social or personal valuation. This capital letter also has, in many cases, the added disadvantage of its extremely subjective nature and the consequent lack of consensus in the inventory of words that would be susceptible to it, which makes it impossible to regulate. It is therefore recommended that it be avoided or, at least, its use should be restricted as far as possible, and it should never become the norm’ (Ortografía de la lengua española, RAE, 2010).
Nothing serious would happen if it was explained to the author that the use of capitalisation is regulated and, for this reason, all the relevant capital letters have been eliminated from their text. The author would simply accepted it, just as they accept that camión requires an accent and they forgot to use. But, on many occasions, the author’s reaction is an attitude along the lines of: ‘But I want this word to appear in capital letters’.
I sit down, take a deep breath; I hold back a tear. I’m not going to start explaining all the things I want, I tell myself, because we would be here all day.
Why is the use of upper/lower case letters considered to be open to personal preference? I’m afraid my psychologist friends need to give me a hand here. For me, this is one of the toughest battles we proofreaders must face. I have even received direct instructions from several desk editors or project managers, telling me to leave a certain word in capitals because the author has requested it (and they add: “he’s a very picky person, we don’t want any trouble. If we don’t comply, there will be endless discussion”). In other words, editors prefer to accept the personal whims of some authors in order to keep the peace, aware that the visceral way with which these authors are capable of defending their capital letters is sometimes out of place.
My trick in these cases is to resort to uniformity, the golden rule and ultimate mission of all proofreaders. Texts must be consistent. What happens most of the time (if not all) is that authors are not consistent in their use of capital letters (as in many other things); thus, although they write ‘Solomillo’ 24 times, on 19 other occasions they write ‘solomillo’, simply because they are not paying attention, they are not aware of the importance of textual uniformity or suddenly, on the day they were writing that chapter, the capital letter no longer seemed so appropriate. Knowing the authors’ arbietrariness and insecurity in these matters, I assume the noble cause of uniformity and, through underhand tactics and fine words, try to convince them that the lower case is the right thing to do. It works sometimes, but sometimes it does not; because obviously, when it comes to unifying, there are those who still opt for the upper case.
I would like authors to understand that capitalisation is perfectly regulated, and that the importance of a concept will never be demonstrated through a typographic resource, but through the clear and assertive exposition of the ideas that the author wants to convey. Of course, there are exceptions; each text is a world of its own in which stylistic, semantic and even orthotypographic games are sometimes possible. If the context justifies some method of highlighting a word, there are other tools (italics, bold, inverted commas, etc.) on which your editor or proofreader will be able to advise. Talk to them, dear authors, explain what emotional charge you want to convey through that capital letter and they will help you produce the best text possible. A capricious and unexpected use of capital letters can be very damaging to the flow of text, as it distracts the reader’s attention more than you can imagine. We proofreaders do not want to ruin your capital letters, believe me: we just want your text to be perfect.