Not the Hundred Acre Wood, yesterday
(7 November 2025)
Not the Hundred Acre Wood, yesterday
In typography, we have lower case, UPPER CASE, Title Case, and a surprisingly long list of various other cases too.
I’d like to suggest another case to the list: Pooh case.
Pooh case was defined by A.A. Milne in the Winnie the Pooh stories, of which I’ve been a fan since I was approximately yay big (which is to say, quite small). I’m reliably informed that Pooh stories were central to the bedtime story routine when I was a nipper.
As I got older, I could read Pooh stories for myself, and that’s where I discovered Pooh case - subconsciously at first, I don’t think I saw it and said out loud: “That’s a new case that is.” Instead, I saw it, internalised it, and saved it for later use.
Pooh case is where Important Words are capitalised within a sentence, for Effect.
It’s easy to confuse Pooh case with Title Case. For example: “Hundred Acre Wood” is clearly written in Title Case. But “My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles” is also very clearly written in Pooh case. It might take some time to get accustomed to, but I think you can usually see the difference if you Pay Proper Attention.
To really understand Pooh case, you need to see read it in the original books. Here are a few examples:
When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.
It is hard to be brave, when you’re only a Very Small Animal.
Pooh hasn’t much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right. There’s Owl. Owl hasn’t exactly got Brain, but he Knows Things. He would know the Right Thing to Do when Surrounded by Water. There’s Rabbit. He hasn’t Learnt in Books, but he can always Think of a Clever Plan.
You see? That’s Pooh case. I use it often, and you can too, but be careful not to Overdo It.
Pooh case should be used sparingly. It should be used to Make A Point, but in a gentle, Pooh sort of way. It’s probably ok to use it at work, but not if you are referring to strategy documents and finance updates. Ideally, you should save Pooh case for occasions involving Woozles, Heffalumps, Busy Days, Expotitions and Enchanted Places - or the work equivalents thereof.
Sara comments:
I never really considered that this could be used for emphasis. Maybe because I am always wondering ‘is this the language that this is capitalised or not’. It seems like useful tool in the writing box. Does make me wonder about the different capitalisation in different languages, from German which capitalises a lot, to English with less, and Slovenian with even less. For example, even this sentence, in Slovenian we would never capitalise the languages. Thank you for writing this post.
giles (at) gilest.org
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