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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

CAPS and other stupid things

you may have noticed that I’m not a big fan of capitalizing things.  it’s just a “thing.”  it drives a couple of my writer friends crazy, and, because of that, I have recently started to wonder whether it takes away any credibility or semblance of professionalism I might (once) have had. 

it’s just something I’ve done since, oh, the time email was invented.  I always tapped away on the keyboard without caps.  think of it as my calling card.  it’s only been more than 25 years…

yes, if you are wondering, I do use proper capitalization in my professional communications at work.  I am actually capable of knowing what to capitalize and what not.  (though I must interject that learning german – which capitalizes every noun regardless of where it lies in the sentence – did make that grasp a bit tenuous at times.)  so it’s not that I can’t or don’t know how to in my more casual communication.  I just don’t.

if you’re really super detail-oriented, like my writer friend Sarah (see? caps for you babe!), you may even have noticed a small progression in the use of caps since my earliest posts.  the thing is that I typically write in word then copy and paste into the blog.  and word automatically capitalizes the word “I” for me.  I got sick of going back and editing all the “I”s to “i”s before posting, and, let’s face it, it sort of defeats the purpose.  so now I let word mess with my mojo a little bit, in the name of expediency.

it also tends to capitalize other things, like the names of languages or countries, etc.  which is annoying because then everything is just inconsistent.  and that bugs me more.  it’s bad enough I gave in to the “I” thing and dealt with that anomaly, but now this is asking too much.  add to that the complication of using people’s names (my gut is to be consistent and not use caps, but some might find that insulting) and talk about the Maya people versus maya stuff (to say nothing of “maya” vs. “mayan”), and the whole thing just bugs me now.

so I’ll put the question to you, the reader:  should I continue in my own quirky but possibly annoying and making-me-look-dumber style, or should I give in and write properly?  if I don’t get many comments, I will be forced to assume you don’t care, or aren’t reading.  in that case… well then I don’t have to apologize for my comma usage, either.

6 comments:

  1. I think you should be yourself. We read your blog because it is you expressing YOU. No apologies.

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  2. I'm OCD. I fix 'em even when it takes all day to do so. That said, I don't usually notice the starts of sentences but names and places do jump out at me if they're not in caps. I say, as long as you're writing casually, it doesn't matter, as long as it doesn't leak over to your professional writing.

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  3. no caps has a different set of tones to it, that's all. to the reader. one can approximate that way, anyway.

    i see the problem arising when auto-whatever messes with your style this way--- was just chatting (in almost all lowercase) the other day with loved one who also decries having to un-correct "esp" meant as "especially" but taken as knee-jerk-uppercasing iPhone to refer to ESP, about which loved one says she writes decidedly less frequently.

    -- lisa

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    Replies
    1. thanks for the feedback, lisa! i have the same problems with iphone messing around with me. you can always tell if my facebook posts come from iphone or a computer.

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  4. As a writer I have one opinion. As a sister, I have another.

    That being said, I have a comma deficiency, so maybe I'm not the right person to judge.

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