Comment by bigstrat2003 10 months ago
> lowercase without caps reads with a warmer, informal tone
No, it reads as "I'm uneducated and don't know how to write the English language properly". It's incredibly obnoxious for people to use as an affectation.
On a formal discussion board like this, I don't believe an informal tone is correct. To me, it doesn't make it harder to read, but it does come across as mildly disrespectful of the environment.
When texting on a phone, the default is to automatically capitalize. Using all-lowercase requires more work than doing nothing. It isn't lazy or even more efficient to go back and replace your "I"s with "i"s. With the right reader, it's done to give them a better idea of the tone you wish to deliver.
With that said, it requires a certain degree of audience awareness. Many people do not interpret lack of capitalization the same way I do, as evidenced by this thread. On my phone, I have auto-capitalization disabled. When texting someone for the first time, I tend to use proper capitalization, even if I want a casual tone. I just did a typing test with capitalization and punctuation and scored 55 wpm on my phone. It's a choice I make and it varies based on audience, and intended tone. Effort, on the other hand, is not a factor.
I use lowercase in most places precisely because it forces me to use shorter sentences and split text into paragraphs. The result is easier on the reader.
It's just a habit from chat rooms and instant messengers of the beginning of this century. Most of my mates who write like that are well over 30.
This whole subthread is one projection after another.
How does lower case force you to do that? It seems to me that it's completely orthogonal to sentence length and paragraph splitting. (But then, I use uppercase, so maybe I don't understand the dynamic.)
> Now, in something like texting, I understand, when you're trying to type on that teeny phone keyboard. It's harder to hit the shift key when you don't have a spare finger because you're only using one.
Mobile operating systems (or is it just iOS?) by default turn the shift on automatically when starting a new sentence and are pretty consistently fast and right. It’s more surprising to me when someone doesn’t use proper capitalisation from mobile.
To me, proper capitalization is easier to parse - not massively so, but a little bit. So writing without caps is a bit of a jerk move. You're making it harder for me to read, either because you're lazy or because you want to affect a style. In either case it's a bit of a jerk move.
It's more of a jerk move when it's done on a discussion board, because what you write once is read multiple times. So the cost multiplies, but (if due to laziness) the benefit only occurs once.
Now, in something like texting, I understand, when you're trying to type on that teeny phone keyboard. It's harder to hit the shift key when you don't have a spare finger because you're only using one. But for something like here, take the time and the effort to make it better for your readers.