Dear people who type in all lowercase

[ancianita]

[Kali]

1. semi guilty

I do capitalize proper nouns, but for some reason I have gotten into the habit of not doing it at the beginning of sentences

and sometimes I am now dropping final periods

[live love laugh]

73. Me too it's sometimes kind of a humility thing..,

long story ,,,

[Mystery sage]

2. That funny!!

[MuseRider]

3. I have never seen this one.

OMG did that make me laugh. Thanks for that!

[sheshe2]

4. OMG!

[TomSlick]

5. Somehow, e-mails in all lower case are better than e-mails in all caps.

All caps reads like the sender is screaming.

[ancianita]

6. Depends, yes?

Last edited Wed Feb 16, 2022, 09:18 PM - Edit history (1)

I tell people when I use all caps -- when I use them -- that I use them for EMphasis. Especially on Facebook, where Zuck has no italics or underlining or bolding for EMphasis.

I'm REALLY serious when I use all caps. You realize I couldn't have been screaming in the middle of that statement, right?

[TomSlick]

23. It may be that when people send me e-mails in caps, they mean to be screaming.

I seem to attract screamers.

[ancianita]

35. That's the typical belief, but seriously, you seem so mild mannered, I just can't imagine.

[barbtries]

79. it usually is screaming,

but i know my sister (for one) did not use media much and she kept on the caps because it was more convenient, i believe.

as you can see I'm spotty in my usage. I have to write a lot of emails so that makes me better about capitalizing when appropriate

[Blues Heron]

7. didnt telegrams used to be all caps? no one thought they were screaming did they?

I never bought into the screaming thing, its just different shaped letters.

[Binkie The Clown]

9. Computers also used to be all caps.

As an old-time COBOL/FORTRAN/ALGOL/BASIC etc. programmer lower case used to look really odd to me.

[LoisB]

13. OMG. Someone from my era. Haven't heard those words in a long time. I've got a COBOL

programming book in my garage. And...hold on to your hat...a WANG book.

[TomSlick]

29. I'm not old enough to have ever received a telegram but

I took COBOL and FORTRAN classes in college. We thought we were on the cutting edge because the courses had only recently stopped using punch cards.

Another six hours of college classes that have never done me any good. They were great fun but not especially useful since college.

[Binkie The Clown]

38. Punch cards were the thing for many years of my professional programming career.

I had been programming for 15 or 20 years before keypunch machines started being phased out in favor of data entry terminals.
The first time I ever coded IBM/360 assembly language code at a terminal instead of writing by hand on paper coding forms I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

[TomSlick]

39. My wife used punch cards in her first accounting job post college.

She was thrilled when the employer changed to data entry terminals.

She tried years ago to explain punch cards to our son. I don't think he believed her.

[Binkie The Clown]

42. I still have a handful of punch cards tucked away somewhere.

Mementos of a time long past.
Everyday names that nobody remembers today: IBM 026, IBM 029, IBM 2501, IBM 1403.
Phrases you never hear anymore: "IPL from device 00C." "Change the pack on the 2311." "Is that the right carriage control tape?"

[sinkingfeeling]

43. I remember all.of that. My favorite thing was doing an

alphabetic sort. Was a key punch operator way back.in the '60s.

[Binkie The Clown]

44. I fondly remember the OBM 083 sorter.

I agree. Sorting a big deck alphabetically was a real hoot. Kids these days don't even know what a "zone punch" is. hahaha

[L. Coyote]

30. Don't forget KERMIT.

I started out coding in ALL CAPS with reverse Polish, and it was a chore to convert the code for other applications.

[rsdsharp]

12. Broadcast copy (news, commercials, promos etc.)

is also written in all caps.

[ancianita]

17. RIGHT?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

25. Morse code was only one case. Whether you thought it was all upper or all lower, it was only one. nt

[TomSlick]

26. I'm an old guy but not so old as to have ever received a telegram.

If all e-mails were in all caps, it would never occur to anyone that the sender was screaming. Now people typing e-mails with the cap-lock on appear to be screaming.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

31. Dems do nuance. Rs don't. All caps is not screaming, it' SHOUTING. Attention seeking race to bottom.

We selectively and sparingly use all caps in places where it is the only mode for EMPHASIS, such as Democratic Underground Reply titles, but not the body (generally) because there the bolding tool is available for use. Most in these forums are tool users.

So, if some self-centered person wishes to gain attention they MIGHT PUT THE WHOLE REPLY TITLE IN ALL CAPS. EVERY WORD.

No if about it. It happens from time to time.

If it were not "frowned upon", socially, among DU members, then there would quickly ensue a race to the bottom where all the titles would be all caps. Or even if it is half, the ugliness would be unignorable and all nuance would be lost.

Even Republican and RepubliQonned sites don't make that mistake. (Oops, I used an internal capitalization for effect.)

Leave the shouting or the no-caps to the lowest-common denominator media.

[Blues Heron]

34. great post, thanks

[efhmc]

51. I have finally given up hating those people. I think it is a vision thing for many of them.

[Binkie The Clown]

8. if it was good enough for e e cummings....

... then it's good enough for me.

[ancianita]

19. i hear ya

Only once used the shift key for caps, just used poetic end lines

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
it is love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh nn said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

In THIS one he uses caps a lot. Just sayin'.

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things—
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
.... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

[Farmer-Rick]

22. Well, when they start writing like e e cummings

I will forgive them.

now said he)
ow said she

Hehe

[Ferrets are Cool]

10. LMAO

[aggiesal]

11. Funny, but a comma will help as well. n/t

[FakeNoose]

14. It's the on-screen keyboards that are doing this

Just sayin'

[Warpy]

15. or it's archy the cockroach

and punk poet, unable to hit two keys at once.

[keithbvadu2]

16. we cheapskates do not want to wear out the shift key prematurely.

[erronis]

18. Y'all just be thankful you don't have to type on a kanji keyboard

And then think about all of us poor I18N programmers who have to deal with UNICODE, UFT-8, 16, multi-byte, ASCII, BCD, EBCDIC, octal, hex, decimal, big/little endian.

[iluvtennis]

21. Wow, that's impressive! n/t

[keithbvadu2]

50. 40 words a minute

[iluvtennis]

20. Cute :-) n/t

[Evolve Dammit]

24. not that there's anything wrong with that?

[ancianita]

37. I take it you're their kind of audience.

[Evolve Dammit]

64. almost everything in life relates to a particular Seinfeld episode for me!

[monkeyman1]

27. Another conspiracy coming up ?

[Joinfortmill]

28. Rofl

[Escurumbele]

32. The same may apply to people who type in all CAPITAL LETTERS.

I am sure this letter is going to open the doors for commas, semi-columns, periods, and all other punctuation marks, and who knows what else to begin sending protest letters as well...Be prepared.

[StClone]

33. Lower cases aren't dangerous...commas are dangerous!

[ancianita]

36. Love it! Here's one with an incorrect comma insertion!

“A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

from a classic on punctuation:

[niyad]

46. Exactly the book that came to mind.

[Lonestarblue]

52. Excellent book--I still have it in my library.

The founders could have used a lesson on commas when they wrote the Second Amendment. Much has been made that the lack of a comma meant that “a well-regulated militia” was not a restrictive phrase.

[ancianita]

54. Cool. Thanks.

You're are correct about the founders; over time, what they wrote has created interpreting divisions about what they meant.

[Blue Owl]

40. For those who are case sensitive....

[Earth-shine]

41. You are what I call a "capitalist." nt

[ancianita]

45. Hey! No swearing!

[dawn5651]

47. i always type in lower case...i was taught upper case is yelling..and internet time is my relaxation

time...lol

[Rabrrrrrr]

49. I always have a negative impression of those who use only lowercase - it's an affectation

and it's really fucking annoying.

I want to scream "Grow up!" and "It's not cute!" and "No, you don't look more artistic or woke or friendly or manga or whatever the fuck you're trying to look like."

But you do look unoriginal and fake.

[ancianita]

53. I hear ya.

I like to remind lowercase users to get acquainted with the Shift key because audiences appreciate a show of literacy. Mindfulness of one's audience is important, otherwise, lowercase typers risk talking mostly to themselves.

[Rabrrrrrr]

55. and then the ones who never us a period or ever complete a thought because they...fucking everything

damn ellipses.

Stop it.

I never complete a thought...feels so rude to let people know when I'm done thinking...on Tuesday, especially...I like beer...

I like what you say: "audiences appreciate a show of literacy" and "Mindfulness of one's audience is important".

The lowercasers and non-punctuation users are basically telegraphing "I don't care enough about you to communicate my thoughts in an easily comprehensible way."

Or they're saying "I'm so unsure that I have anything of value to say that I cloak it in cutesy in the hopes that you won't hate me."

[ancianita]

57. Right?

Without realizing it, lowercase users hurt the purpose of human communications, imo, because one small decision leads to other ones, which negatively change communications.

Lowercase users don't know how narrowly they limit their audience, because it's more about what they as writers want than about what the audience wants, which, overall, is writer credibility, and thus trustworthiness. They care more about what they have to say than about what the audience "gets."

To me, then, it's also about how seriously writers take themselves and their message, which is revealed by how they approach a public audience. Like political norms, writing norms exist for a reason -- to do the greatest good for the greatest number -- or why bother communicating at all. When it looks careless or lazy, the message comes out more as noise than signal.

We're drowning enough in white noise as it is. Look at the noise made in hybrid warfare waged by fascist countries' hacker and troll farms. We drown in misinformation, disinformation and all the irrational woo and emo that spread by corporate media.

Man, I gotta stop, cuz I could go on and on about your issue here.

Thanks for your post.

[DownriverDem]

56. What I do

I do not capitalize trump or repubs.

[ancianita]

58. Hear hear!

That there is a conscious style change that sends a political message, and there's mindfulness in that.

Very cool. I do the same thing, usually not capitalizing trumpcult or sedition caucus. Because capitalizing legitimizes them; no mindful writer would do that. Small decisions add up and the audience can read the writer's decisions as generally mindful or mindless habit.

[wryter2000]

74. Thank you for not saying...

"Here, here."

[happy feet]

59. LOL!

Occasionally guilty though I do always capitalize names.

[calimary]

60. Point made.

Very well made!

[Roc2020]

61. I rarely use

CAPS. I prefer lowercase but I also know it's annoying to many

[GoldenMezzoDiva]

62. my right/writing hand is disabled at present...

so lower case is what you get.

[ancianita]

65. It's to be understood here that not all lowercase users are mindless, but have real typing problems

So thank you for pointing that out other reasons to be mindful of. Toward improving back-and-forth communicating, imo, your audience would likely appreciate that you copy/paste that point prior to your first typed response.

[C Moon]

63. The only times I avoid capital letters are: trump, putin, tfg etc

[ancianita]

66. Cool, & most of DU knows why and probably does the same. It's a political writing norm around here.

[TlalocW]

67. OMG!

The horse is ee cumming! Why, uncle? Why?

TlalocW

[ancianita]

68. ...

good one

[localroger]

69. dear capital letters,

you are the reason i once spent three days figuring out that I had saved a scan code in the nonexistent variable lastUPCcode instead of the correct one lastUpcCode. you are why i have removed the shift keys from all the keyboards in our building.

sincerely, that guy you screwed

[Trueblue1968]

70. TOUGH BEANS, i type in lower letters for good medical reason. i have nerve damage in my left hand

i can't type using y little finger. AT ALL.

AT ALL. have cubital tunnel. nerve damage. my hand hurts 24/7

[ancianita]

71. So sorry to hear that. Everyone gets the disability exceptions. Glad you made that clear.

As was pointed out earlier, it's to be understood here that not all lowercase users are mindless, but have real typing problems.

I'm sorry for your pain, and hope new treatments come up that can help heal the damage.

[Emile]

72. Someone gave this a lot of thought.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

75. I prefer jeans and flannel shirts this time of year.

.................

Besides, since Sears shut down, it's hard to find decent lowercase these days......

[TheBlackAdder]

76. txet esrever ni epyt ohw elpoep raeD

[ancianita]

77. drowssap a eb dluoc ti looc os looc yaw heh heh

[TheBlackAdder]

78. 🤣

[Aussie105]

80. Actually, correct use of capitals, punctuation and the apostrophe is important

in effective communication.

Get it wrong, and you come across as some dumb . . .

[SpankMe]

81. What would e e cummings say about this? n/t

[ancianita]

83. Good question. My guess is he'd find it funny but would not make a careless mistake of meaning

by omitting something.

[The Jungle 1]

82. i think you just called me a Heevahava.

google it
listen yuns we have a lot of words here in pa that yuns know nutting bout.
i didn't tink we were allow ta call names on dis site.

[ancianita]

86. Being half French, speaking half Spanish, being married to a Dutchman, I've not heard of that word!

Whatchu cuse me of ain't nonna my bidness innit.

[The Jungle 1]

88. The word is Pennsylvania Dutch.

The word identifies the person who collects the sperm from a horse or bull.
On the farm this was a necessary task. In the factory or the bar it was a derogatory expletive. Usually proceeded by an Fing.
It was not really a fighting expletive. It was generally delivered with a smile to a friend.

[cksmithy]

84. As a retired second grade teacher,

I completely agree with you and laugh whole heartily at your post. I still text to my own children in complete sentences with appropriate punctuation and capital letters. It was so taught and ingrained in me during my own childhood, i just can't not do it. (Double negative, I think.)

[cksmithy]

85. As a retired second grade teacher,

I completely agree with you and laugh whole heartily at your post. I still text to my own children in complete sentences with appropriate punctuation and capital letters. It was so taught and ingrained in me during my own childhood, i just can't not do it. (Double negative, I think.)

[ancianita]

87. Having been a high school teacher who admires any teacher who can work with

little ones, I can't not thank you for your service.

My Gen X and Millennial adult children, my whole family, also text following punctuation, capitalization and orthographic rules. They believe in literacy norms and make exception for any disabled friends who text.

And yes, your last six words are a double negative, perfectly used.

[The Jungle 1]

89. My mom was a teacher who taught kids who were having trouble learning how to read.

One time I asked her how come the word phonics is not spelled phonically.
Well that was fun and I got yelled at. She couldn't catch me anymore.
I will tell you this I refuse to capitalize the name trump or the word nazi. Never gonna happen. Capitalization is a demonstration of respect. There are things and people I have no respect for.

[orleans]

90. it's as if you were talking to me (lol)

thank god i don't know anyone by the name of jack who has a horse

i used to type in all caps (years ago) and eventually caved to those who thought i was yelling. for the record, i was not yelling

i also have a tendency to not use a period at the end of a sentence if:
1. it's the last sentence
or
2. if the sentences are separated by double spacing (see above)

go figure