Something I learned when I worked in Public Relations (and which is also a matter of common sense) is often ignored or forgotten by graphic designers - beware of capitals!
Capitals or Upper Case if you want to be snobby - or majuscules* if you want to get all technical - help us to signify new sentences, denote proper names (as opposed to improper names e.g. 'you arse!') and attach importance or emphasis. These are some of the benefits of not having a unicase language, or being German, where random capitalisation appears to occur.
(Of course, you can also attach importance or emphasis using other devices e.g. italic, bold, underlining or size or a big red felt pen.)
Compare:
EVEN BEFORE THE USE OF CAPITALS BECAME SYNONYMOUS WITH 'SHOUTING' IN EMAILS, TEXTS AND SOCIAL NETWORKS, THEY WERE BAD AND WRONG.
with:
Even before the use of capitals became synonymous with 'shouting' in emails, texts and social networks they were BAD and WRONG.
Why?
1. Because it is much more difficult to take in blocks of text that are all exactly the same height. We need those ascenders and descenders to speed up word recognition, which is done by shapes and patterns as much as anything else. UPPER CASE kills - don't believe me? Read Capital Offenders
2. Because IF YOU emphasize everything, you EMPHASISE NOTHING
I'll finish with a little ditty from Roger McGough:
ONCE I LIVED MY LIFE IN CAPITALS
MY LIFE INTENSELY PHALLIC
but now I'm sadly lower case
with the occasional italic
* The lower case letters are called miniscules even when they're not as small as this
Related posts: 10 Punctuation Pet Hates and Freeze! It's the Grammar Police
Love it (or should I say "LOVE IT!!!!")
ReplyDeleteNext target, the misuse and abuse of the exclamation mark and quotation marks.
haha, this is great! :o) I tend to write text messages in caps only because then I don't have to deal with as much punctuation :o)
ReplyDeleteLOL. A great post!
ReplyDeleteSplendid. I was going to say 'Capital' but that sounded wrong somehow.
ReplyDeleteShe - Yes indeed. See: 10 Punctuation Pet Hates *shakes fist*
ReplyDeleteJessica - That's how facism started. (Just kidding!) I only write texts in lower case, but that's because I have no idea how to do upper case
Ellie - Thanks sweetie!
Dave - It's a dirt word, but someone's got to say it.
Great post, though I confess to using capitals sometimes in blog posts.
ReplyDeleteI love the verse at the bottom of your post, made me chuckle. I hate dashes - between sentences - they aren't punctuation! ;O)
I could understand it a few years ago when people weren't really aware of the capital issue, but now? I have a friend who writes all her emails in pink capitals - it's all I can do not to delete them unread.
ReplyDeleteWhile we're on the subject of words and how they're written - does the British spelling of 'organi_e' have a z or an s in that slot? (you did both, BB, which doesn't help me out one bit)
Hi Madeleine, and welcome! I find that sometimes I MUST dash -------
ReplyDeleteDeborah - nooooo! You meant the emphasis/emphasize didn't you? OK, you got me on that. Thinks: 'Will I get away with claiming to offer bilingual service for overseas visitors?' I think we have an S and the US has a Z, but spell checkers, even when you select 'UK' still insist on Americanisms.
Oh, yes, indeed, those pesky capitals. I have a habit of writing notes to myself in ALL CAPS when it's something I think I'd best remember . . . and then, when I go back to them, I find my eyes cross trying to read ALL THOSE CAPITAL LETTERS.
ReplyDeleteBut do you think the German capitals can possibly be random? As someone of part German descent, I am not sure an ability to act with such (random) abandon is in the genes . . .
Rainy - No, I'm sure they're not, which is why I said 'appears to occur (to cover myself if any German-speakers read this...Friko for example!) - I just don't know the rules!
ReplyDeleteSo true and I so agree! Love the verse...
ReplyDeleteI hate unnecessary capitalisation.
ReplyDelete