Here’s a question for ya’: Did the Yahoo! Style writer mean this “mock inauguration scene” purportedly took place in the U.S. capital? Or in the U.S. Capitol?
The U.S. capital (with a small C and two A’s) is Washington D.C. The U.S. Capitol (with a capital C, one A, and one O) is a building in the capital that houses Congress.
While I’m pondering what “capitol letters” are (could they be missives to representatives on Capitol Hill?), you can ponder the mystery that is a mismatched subject and verb on Yahoo! Finance:
The word capitol means only one thing: A building or buildings where legislatures meet. If you mean something else (including uppercase letters), use capital. Maybe someone at Yahoo! can explain why using incorrect words does not matter to the Internet giant.
The National Christmas Tree was lit recently in Washington, DC, the nation’s capital. According to Yahoo! Style, it lit up the Capitol, which is the building where Congress meets:
I bet that the writer had no idea that there is only one meaning of capitol — it’s a building. If you mean anything else, then you need some capital.
Was an NBA team playing basketball in California’s state house? That’s what this Yahoo! Sports writer alleges, but I don’t believe him:
I think that he’s referring to a team in Sacramento, which is the California state capital. A capitol is a building where a legislature meets.
When did that happen? When did the former governor of Florida move into the state’s capitol building? Maybe the folks at Yahoo! News, who broke the story, can tell us:
It’s more likely they can tell us how they can confuse capitol (which is a building and only a building) with capital (which is a city that is the seat of government).
When Prince William visits the U.S. next month, he’ll spend time in New York City and the U.S. capital, which is Washington, D.C. The U.S. Capitol, which the writer for Yahoo! Style thinks is the city, is actually a building:
The word capitol, with an O, is a building where state legislatures meet; with a capital C, it’s where the U.S. Congress meets. If you mean anything else, then use the word with two A’s: capital.
Any capitol would need high ceilings to accommodate a little NBA action.
The nation’s capitol is the United States Capitol. It’s a building on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., which is the nation’s capital. The capital is far more likely to be the site of an NBA game, and not the building that’s alleged on Yahoo! Sports.
What makes this article on Yahoo! Travel a candidate for Worst Travel Writing of the Day? It could be this paragraph, which starts out with a non-sentence and then gets a tad repetitive:
OK, so that was ugly. Maybe it was just a fluke. What could possibly be wrong with this?
Well, in the first place, the Capital Wheel is not in Washington. It’s in Maryland. That’s kinda a giant embarrassment. A lesser mistake is referring to the U.S. Capital (the capital of the U.S. is Washington, DC) when the writer meant the building, which is the Capitol.
Finally, the error that made this article a shoo-in for the Worst Travel Writing of the Day trophy:
Honey Boo Boo has been somewhere with her family and I believe it was Washington D.C. If she was in the capital of the U.S., then the folks at Yahoo! TV picked the wrong homophone:
If they meant she was in the Capitol building, then they picked the right word, but should have capitalized (no pun intended) it.
If you’re writing about the building where a legislature meets, the word you want is capitol. If you’re writing about money, the top of a column or pillar, an asset, a city or town, or anything other than a building, it’s capital.
Someone could use a little civics lesson over at the Yahoo! front page:
The U. S. Congress is often referred to as Capitol Hill, which is the location of the U.S. Capitol (the building housing Congress) in the U.S. capital (which is Washington).
Terribly Write 