Ramblings of a Grammar Snob

It's 2 am and I ruined what promised to be my one decent night's sleep this week by falling asleep earlier over a marketing case.

So what else does one do at 2 am if not look up grammar rules?

My MBA study/work team got a case analysis back today and the professor noted our incorrect use of capitalization after a colon. Now, as an English major, I take great pride in my knowledge of grammar. I'd always thought that independent clauses that follow a colon should be capitalized. Here's an example from our paper:

"To keep costs low, SWA [Southwest Airlines] focuses primarily on minimizing aircraft turnaround times: Every minute on the ground is a minute the company is not making money."

The prof noted that it should be "every".

Although our grade wasn't affected, I was still curious as to who was right, so I did some research (i.e., I googled it). I conclude that it's more of a style issue: O(o)ne could argue that we were right! The following is taken from here.

"There is some disagreement among writing reference manuals about when you should capitalize an independent clause following a colon. Most of the manuals advise that when you have more than one sentence in your explanation or when your sentence(s) is a formal quotation, a capital is a good idea. The NYPL Writer's Guide urges consistency within a document; the Chicago Manual of Style says you may begin an independent clause with a lowercase letter unless it's one of those two things (a quotation or more than one sentence). The APA Publication Manual is the most extreme: it advises us to always capitalize an independent clause following a colon. The advice given above is consistent with the Gregg Reference Manual."

(Emphasis added - and obviously the writer of that paragraph doesn't follow APA.)

Anyway, the ramblings of a grammar snob at 2 am!