h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been reading a few posts on h2g2 recently and I've noticed that some people seem to be intellegent and insightful individuals yet incapable of using capital letters correctly. As well as being difficult to read this posts give the impression of being an illiterate moron. Evidently these people aren't illiterate morons, they are making intellgent and insightful points. They put full stops at the end of sentances, but no capital letters at the beginning.

Now I can't spell perfectly, and I can't understand the difference bettween a semi colon and a colon, I understand that not everyone has a perfect grasp of English.

How difficult is it to grasp these two simple points:

1. A sentance starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop

and

2. The word 'I', should always be capitalised.

Please do point out my spelling errors in the above post!

I’m too lazy for capital letters at the beginning of sentences. anybody knows that a sentence ends with a “.”. so there’s no use to start the next sentence with a capital letter… this strategy saves me at least 10 seconds a day!

katkodl

Do you actually want people to read your posts?

If you are posting more than a few sentances the lack of capital letters makes it very hard to understand. You actually have to look for the full stops.

It's not altough it takes that much extra time, all you have to do is press the shift key at the same time as the letter, and you do then give the a better impression.

well, I don’t have problems in reading posts without capital letters. and I doubt that people are influenced by capital letters whether to read a post or not. I think it’s rather the content of my posts that makes people read it or not.

katkodl

I think the whole problem stems from people just not rembering to press down shift, and then not being to bothered about it afterwards.

For the two finger typist it is yet another key to attempt to find; for the touch typist, you can be going so fast that you just plain forget.

I have had to consioulsy think about what has had to be capitalised in this post, and have had to back and capitalise something because i forgot while doing it.

For me, the hardest thing to read is mega-long paragraphs.

itscalledlaziness

.,;:.:",()?..',!..!'.-,.:,,:;'..'.,

(Just thought I'd post some spare punctuation for those people who seem to be missing it )

(Z: it's sentEnce! )

RF

Thank you!

*hides*

I am actually acutely embarrassed about my English! That said I have to admit that I don't actually have to think about where to put capital letters most of the time.

But I'm afraid posts without capital letters escpecially in a serious debate in the forum simply indicate to the causal reader that the poster is lazy.

It irks me greatly that the English language, both written and spoken, is massacred with unfailing regularity.

Using correct punctuation at its most basic level (that of full stops and capital letters) is so basic that a five year old can grasp it. Not doing so is because of laziness, and to try to use the argument that it takes too long to hit the shift key beggars belief!

Thank god we are not discussing the abomination that is text messaging - I'd burst a blood vessel.

.gniyonna yllaer s'tI .sdrawkcab epyt ohw elpoeP ?srettun em sevird tahw wonk uoY

I agree with Z and Mrs The Wife, it is easier to read posts that have been properly punctuated. Lots of people can't spell but it is usually possible to understand what they mean if they have used some degree of punctuation and used words in an appropriate context.

Many people haven't been taught punctuation properly (including me), but I have picked up most of my knowledge simply by reading. I can't claim to understand the correct use of colons and such like, and I'm only just coming to grips with the apostrophe, but full stops and capital letters are basic stuff.

Overly long paragraphs and poorly punctuated posts are a turn off. I admit to skipping over them sometimes because I can't always decipher them.

I don't personaly use the excuse that it takes to long to hit the shift key, was jsut trying to think up a reason.

I touch type so I know where all the keys are without having to think about it. However sometimes I concentrate on the content rather than other things, I do have capital letters at the start of sentences, though my problem comes to "I" as i normaly typing midsentence a capital is not needed, at which point I am concencentrating on the content.

I only ever use text speak when texting, thats what it is for, also a tiny bit in IM as brb gtg ttyl, but I won't go into that as thats complety differnt to a post.


*Absolutey every "I" in a middle of a sentence in this post has had to be returned to to be capitalised as my hands type faster than my brain corrects them.*

Those who have problems finding the shift key should thank their lucky stars that we're not using German here. Then every noun would have to be capitalised. Try any site with a ".de" ending if you don't believe me. (towns' names for example - www.berlin.de)

for me ignoring capital letters is a sign of informal writing. capital letters remind me of formal writing I do i.e. for university. for me writing in lower case letters is a sign of leisure time.
same with my dialect: when I’m at university I talk in standard language, when I’m with friends I talk in my native dialect. is this a sign of laziness as well?

katkodl

I have never ever seen a person over the age of twelve handwrite a sentance without appropriate capitalisation. Admittedly I handwrite a lot, so perhaps I'm in the habit.

I wonder why the standards have changed when we are typing?

Kathodl I have to say I was surprised that you were at university, from reading your posts you don't come across as educated. If that doesn't bother you then that's up to you. I may be predjudiced jumping to this conculsion but I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Ah... I see which way this thread is going... Ok, take your copy of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" and your sense of superiority and enjoy yourselves. I'll Unsubscribe.

>> Then every noun would have to be capitalised. <<

That applies in English as well, at least with proper nouns. Proper nouns are the names of people, places and the like. Common nouns are not capitalised.

e.g. Stuart lives in the county of Cheshire. Stuart and Cheshire are proper nouns. County is a common noun which is not capitalised except in this case as it starts the sentence.

I agree that a whole page of text without a single capital letter or paragraph break is so difficult to read I never bother. If you want people to read what you write, common sense dictates that you make it as easy as possible for them. It all to easy to click Next and ignore the junk and spend your time on something a little less onerous. That applies even more so on a informal context like this where bad English can so easily be ignored and not get read at all.

As for spelling, I would suggest the people download an install a copy of Ispell. It is an Explorer Plug-in that allows you to spell check any text input box. http://www.iespell.com/

Donald

as I’ve mentioned before, h2g2 is part of my leisure time. I don’t see the point in writing formal here, I don’t need everybody to know by each of my posts that I’m at university. and I know that I make a lot of mistakes when writing in English, that’s because I’m not a native speaker.
don’t know if this is as important as writing in capital letters, but my name is katkodl, not kathodl.

katkodl