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

i've just noticed that you seem not to bother using capital letters in your typing. i quite like the idea of that for some reason. much easier to type that way!

english has no formal requirements to use mixed (upper and lower) case. tho useage dictates that it will be expected while still a student, in commerce or journalism. single case writing has a venerable history. the romans did it. medieval monks did it.

that said, i do it from sloth. i can type plenty fast but not if i have to use a shift key. and now that so much software will auto capitalise for me, i am prolly beyond redemption.

thx for dropping by btw. i don't get many visitors.

I don't get many myself. Yeah, you're right about the Romans, now you mention it.

I am gonna jump in right here, sorta gate crashing.

Leaving aside the typing problem (yes, using the shift key slows down the typing process), I found that capitals in other languages serve a support function. In German, all nouns have to be capitalized. So you do not only have to use the Shift Key for the first Word of the Sentence, but on many more Occasions. While this makes writing more complicated (you have to know what a Noun is), it makes Reading easier. Different Parts of a Sentence or Clause can be identified more easily. You know that if the next Word is capitalized, it is a Noun, and thus it cannot be a Verb and thus it will not be the Predicate of a Sentence or Clause. Through Capitalization, the Comprehension Process is supported.

Y.

i am not to my knowledge using german or any other language than english.

i am not convinced interrupted case makes reading easier. personally i found your last 5 sentences difficult to read.

the only half-way legit objection to single case usage i have encountered is the argument that it makes it hard to locate the end of a sentence. my response is that if one can't see full stops one probably can't see commas either, so ultimately the solution is with the reader: either wear glasses or increase font size.

It's a fair point though. I think German must be pretty unique in the way it uses capital letters for all its nouns. It must help foreigners to identify the parts of speech if they know nouns are always going to start with a capital letter.

more convenient still might be to put in brackets after each word what it is. (noun) (verb) (preposition) etc.

this of course would not require capitalisation.

call me old fashioned but personally i don't parse sentences in ordinary reading. never seen a need.

Actually, it would be more functional to reading comprehension to not label (verb) the (article) words (noun) like (conjunction) this (demonstrative pronoun), but rather to identify what function the word or phrase has in a clause (subject, object, predicate...)

That said... I actually favor abolishing the capitalization rules used in German. I personally don't think that the one benefit (you can identify nouns more easily) outweighs the drawbacks. But I am not the one making the rules of German spelling.

As a teacher, I have to insist that my students use the rules we have, and that means for English, to capitalize "I", the first letter of a sentence, etc. My students, being the curious kind they are, would immediately ask me, "why does antigravitas not write "i" with a "big I"?", or "But I heard in a song that the singer said "she don't care", so why should i (or I) say "she doesn't care"?".

Y.

my feeling is that chat rooms, non professional fora, and personal emails qualify as conversational, and so long as one is understood, no particular conventions are binding. i actually made this distinction in post #2.

for similar reasons i don't use smileys, emoticons and abbreviations such as *LOL* in business reports either.

nor would i criticise someone who uses smilies in a conversational thread because in other situations it would be inappropriate.

my advice to you as a teacher is to inform your students that when they are adults they are free to exercise whatever writing style they please and to take little heed of anyone who tries to control how they express themselves.

because that is really what this is about: not communication, but conformity. the lack of it irritates some people.

please do not post to this topic. the subject is closed.

i won't be changing.