This week in honor of Mother's Day, which is Sunday in the United States, I have a meeting

middle about capitalization in general and also when to capitalize words such as mom

and mother.

And I have a second meeting middle about why we say someone is in the doldrums.

At first I have a correction from last week.

Neil Babcock on Twitter pointed out that I said the summary of the quick and dirty tip

backwards at the end of one of the segments last week.

So just to be clear, think of Americans as bald.

If you're in America, people tell bald-faced lies.

And if you're in Britain, people tell bare-faced lies.

Thanks, Neil.

So we had some fun follow-ups to the mixed metaphor and hyphen segments.

Funny mixed metaphors readers shared include a stitch in time is worth a pound of cure,

like a loose cannon in a china shop, beating your head against a dead horse, and my favorite

it's like pulling teeth from a baby.

And Peter Steven on Twitter wrote, quote, on hyphens, I'm a football fan.

In this time of year, there's lots of news about players resigning, but newspapers drop

the hyphen all the time.

Resigning is the complete opposite of resigning, unquote, good point.

Thanks, Peter, and thanks to everyone for the comments.

And now onto capitalization.

First gripes writing with their early Roman alphabet didn't have to choose between uppercase

...