Before you read this article, please note that:
- You may be offended if you commit the writing gaffe described herein.
- I have nothing against the German language.
One thing I often see on social media—especially from smaller businesses—is the capitalization of nouns in the middle of sentences. You might ask, “What’s the big deal?” It’s a big deal because it’s incorrect and makes your writing look unprofessional. This will hurt your brand.
Wrong:
Get ready for our big Sale! You’ll love our Discounts off our entire Bella Vita Line!
Right:
Get ready for our big sale! You’ll love our discounts off our entire Bella Vita line!
The only words that should be capitalized are the first word of each sentence (“Get” and “You’ll”) and proper nouns (“Bella Vita”). When you capitalize any other nouns, you might as well write in German, which capitalizes all nouns.
If you’re still not convinced, check out the social media pages of the top 10 American brands: Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Visa, Facebook, McDonald’s, AT&T, IBM, and Mastercard. None of them use German capitalization. Combined, they’ve spent billions of dollars on marketing research, and they’ve surely tested their copywriting. If they thought they’d boost sales by capitalizing nouns, they would have done it by now.
By the way, you may have noticed that this article’s headline is capitalized. Headlines are one exception to the rule. 😃
On a final note, I think German is a fun language. My favorite sentence (after 13 whopping days of lessons on DuoLingo) is:
Der Bär trinkt Bier.
It means:
The bear drinks beer.
Just remember to have a lowercase “b” for “bear” and “beer.” 😃
