Yes, I Power-Capitalize

And I don't plan to stop

Feb 12, 2026

President Trump and I agree on basically nothing. But the word “basically” is in that sentence because we agree on one important thing: You should capitalize words if they feel like they should be capitalized. Trump’s Truth Social feed is packed with out-of-the-blue capitalizations, and so is I Might Be Wrong; it’s the only thing the two sources have in common other than the belief that James Comey is kind of a dink. And before Grammar ICE kicks down my door and hauls me off to Syntax Guantanamo, I’d like to defend my choice.

I know that I’m breaking The Holy Rules of Grammar passed down by the First Council of Annoying Pedants of Nicea in 325 AD. Trump perhaps doesn’t know the rules; I am flagrantly waving my private parts in the rules’ direction. I feel that some words need to be highlighted and emphasized, not just for impact, but for clarity. Grammar rules are set by institutions like Oxford and the Associated Press that are so stuffy they make a Protestant church service look like a Caligulan orgy; I don’t think they realize that comedy has its own special set of needs.

Consider a phrase I just used: “The Holy Rules of Grammar”. The Holy Rules of Grammar do not exist — I made them up. But I can squeeze a little extra giggle juice from the comedy lemon by pretending that they’re real. Same goes for the First Council of Annoying Pedants of Nicea; that’s not a real person, place, or thing and therefore not a proper noun, but it would be a proper noun if it I hadn’t just pulled it out of my ass. Strict adherence to the rules of grammar works fine if you’re writing an article for The Economist about lumber production in Borneo, but they don’t fare well in the Forest of Enchanted Nonsense that exists on this blog.

I also sometimes capitalize words to notify readers that a joke is afoot. Two days ago, I said “It Is Known in Hollywood that you must have entry points,” because I wanted readers to hear “It Is Known” as a quasi-religious incantation. Yesterday, I called Jon Stewart “The World’s Most Perfect Liberal Man” because I wanted people to process that description as a title you could win, like Heavyweight Champion of World, and maybe even picture Stewart hoisting a big, gold belt with “WMPLM” spelled out in rubies. Comedy has “indicators” that signal the joke: For George Burns it was chomping on a cigar, for Rodney Dangerfield it was fiddling with his tie. In written comedy, random capitalization is a valuable indicator.

Cadence and word choice also matter in comedy. There are basic rules that every comedian knows: List things in groups of three, lean towards hard “k” sounds, use the word “fingerblast” whenever possible. Comedy has a rhythm that helps bring out the funny. Things like italics and capitalization aid that rhythm by letting the writer choose which words matter most. That’s huge, because another thing that every comedian knows is that the audience is a bunch of amoeba-brained dog people who have to have the joke shoved in their fat dumb faces before they’ll get it.1

I write four columns a week. The ones that aren’t Very Serious Political Analysis have to be arguably somewhat funny. So I need to use every tool available to me to keep the japery rolling off the assembly line. Capitalization gives me more control over how my words are read, and if I get fewer dinner invitations from the grammar maven smart set, that’s a price I’m willing to pay. I am — like our idiot president — a Power Capitalizer. And I am not ashamed.