The distinction doesn’t even translate to verbal communication and many languages are perfectly fine without cases. It is meaningless. Stop it!
The distinction doesn’t even translate to verbal communication and many languages are perfectly fine without cases. It is meaningless. Stop it!
Capital letters give shape to lines of text on a page that make it easier for the eye to skim. Sure, they don’t add any additional information that the period does not already have (and proper names are mostly vanity), but try reading page after page of all lower-case. It will take longer and comprehension will be lower. This is the same reason why some letters extend above and below the line - makes decoding words easier by giving them shape.
You can try it out yourself by saving this bookmarklet and using it to downcase a page! (Create new browser bookmark and paste “javascript:…” as the URL)
javascript:for (e of document.querySelectorAll('*')){for (c of e.childNodes){if (c.nodeType === Node.TEXT_NODE) c.textContent = c.textContent.toLowerCase()}}; void(0)Come to think of it, the ease-of-read effect does look more pronounced on a full page of text rather than someplace where every post is a single sentence.
I appreciate the perspective, and I fully realize this hill I am dying on is not going to win hearts and minds. But you have to admit these problems have been solved in other ways without the extravagance of two mashed up writing systems. Even some forms of English like Morse code and ASL don’t bother with it (or can’t effectively bother with it) and it is fine. I think you are correct when you say vanity is the reason the convention now clings along.
Bonus thought: Punctuation at the beginning of a sentence like in Spanish should be codified across the globe.
If you really are prepared to die on this hill just do it, not just here, but at work, college, etc, and if it is better everyone else will follow. Language is a living, evolving thing.
I realize I am nowhere near influential enough. I am comfortable dying right here and now among all you lovely people.
I mean, it isn’t that difficult. Just pick all lower case or all upper case to communicate in.
By current conventions, one of those will be interpreted as aggressive and the other submissive, or unprofessional or something (at least within many common contexts).
I am that judgy too. For example, I just had an email with someone I work for this week and she used the word breech (which means poo) instead of breach (as in a contractual breach). And I took the rest of the day off to giggle.
ARGHGHAAGHAAHRRRGHAAHGH
No, one will be seen as aggressive and or uneducated the other as lazy and or uneducated.
No choice then. Odd letters of the alphabet gets capitalized, even letters get downcased. That way you need to learn only one glyph for each still, but nobody will interpret you as BDSM.
I also feel compelled to mention secure passwords conventionally involve upper and lower cases, but still, this problem can be resolved in other ways. A lot of phones use drawing lines on a grid as authentication. Make your password a combination of Korean and Hindi characters. Make your password a string of emojis.
Edit: and yes, I am more in favour of emojis being incorporated into written language than hoity-toity when you call me “the queen”, you had better call me “the Queen” nonsense. Fuck outta here with that bourgeois gatekeeping.
Lol, oh the irony of your hypocrisy is laughable