Posted by Patrick Henry on September 21, 1998 at 14:58:42:
In Reply to: Re: Affidavit Notice posted by Two Cities on September 20, 1998 at 20:55:24:
Yes, and I look with amusement at the thus-far illiterate course of said discussion. It is total balderdash, having neither substance nor historical veracity. If you want to joust with the upper-case/lower-case windmills in your confrontations with government, have at it. But I won't be holding my breath waiting for you to prevail. CAPITALIZATION of individual words HAS ANCIENTLY been used to denote emphasis. And I challenge you to come up with any historical or legal EVIDENCE that it either changes the intended meaning, or has any legal signification.
It is my opinion that Capitalization vs. non-capitalization is a red-herring at best.
As far as birth certificate, Birth Certificate, BIRTH CERTIFICATE, certificate of birth, Certificate of Birth, or CERTIFICATE OF BIRTH, until I am shown proof to the contrary, I will continue to advocate that each of the terms is 100% identical in meaning in all respects, commonly and legally. If you will do some research, you will find that the very earliest Birth Certificates more often than not used the form Certificate of Birth. Even those which were issued through the Department of Commerce of the United States of America. And there is NO QUESTION that the children named upon those Department of Commerce certificates were in fact chattel the the central government.
In my earlier more foolish years I worked for various state government departments. I have designed forms for state use. I can say from experience that it would be an extremely rare occurrence if those "Joe & Jane Sixpack" government employees whose job it was to design a new form ever consider whether or not a work should be capitalized or not. Esthetics, available design resources, etc., more generally control a form's FORM.