CapITaLizaTIOn

Thread Starter

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
as the title suggests...

Many people put value on beginning sentences with a Capital letter,
and also to spell names with capital letters.

Indeed, spelling names in lowercase on address labels has lower readability especially
when using handwriting.

I often use a mix: spell first name ALL BIG LETTERS then capitalize second name, or reverse,
or write some parts in small letters or only with first letter capitalized.

And I mix it in some cases if it looks nice:

ANChORAGe

In handwriting it looks nice since I can increase the non capitalized letters

ANChORAGe

more looks like this :)

while the h is proportional to the other capitalized letters

The big A I write like this


but in reverser (from the left upwards).

maybe the reason for that is practicing japanese stroke order which goes from left to right (you wouldnt construct kanji or katankana from right to left at all).

and it saves 0.06 seconds on average.
 

Thread Starter

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
Took me about an hour freehand without any picture or means of helping, so whats the correliation to the wiki article? I dont think I have it.

Its more like if you deal with a lot of addresses, you see: different people, different ways of spelling

HWY = Highway or is it Hwy., or is it hwy, ST., st, str., street, Street, STREET,

so, of course, i need to use my own inconsistencies or I get confused too much.

Oh, yes, regaarding the article I think copying off address labels like a slave, including all possible ways of capitalization, is just stupid.

There are a lot of people who cant think of what correlation means so does it matter? One time I saw a printed manual for a large agricultural vehicle and it was full of spelling mistakes and weird orthography.

Here's another one, I saw women doing it on purpose when doing handwriting but it has to be wrong in their way of means, if you do it your way, its wrong wrong.
 

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spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
as the title suggests...

Many people put value on beginning sentences with a Capital letter,
and also to spell names with capital letters.

Indeed, spelling names in lowercase on address labels has lower readability especially
when using handwriting.

I often use a mix: spell first name ALL BIG LETTERS then capitalize second name, or reverse,
or write some parts in small letters or only with first letter capitalized.

And I mix it in some cases if it looks nice:

ANChORAGe

In handwriting it looks nice since I can increase the non capitalized letters

ANChORAGe

more looks like this :)

while the h is proportional to the other capitalized letters

The big A I write like this


but in reverser (from the left upwards).

maybe the reason for that is practicing japanese stroke order which goes from left to right (you wouldnt construct kanji or katankana from right to left at all).

and it saves 0.06 seconds on average.
If you made a habit of mixing case in a word then I would have to block you. No caps at the beginning of sentences are barely tolerable. If I see a post of more than a few lines like that then I ignore it.
 

Thread Starter

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
I can write about 20 pages in an evening, either with keyboard or pen, about any topic, without thinking, but its not so much my thing to write big essays.

But now I introduce some mistakes for the orthography, just some, and when using handwriting, BIG LETTERS have higher readability but I found inserting a few lower case letters, and it looks more smooth.

Not to be confused with dYsGRaphiA (by the way you cant just randomly change capitalization, it has to look smooth so the changes can only happen to some rythm).

you have to be a women, and you have to be otaku, kindof...

yes kindof I write threads like this because I'm unhappy special population groups can claim certain rights and just get away with it, if you do it different than them, its "wrong wrong".
 

Thread Starter

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
If you made a habit of mixing case in a word then I would have to block you. No caps at the beginning of sentences are barely tolerable. If I see a post of more than a few lines like that then I ignore it.
God, if it makes you happy?

Have I ever mixed up words to some kind of lolspeak?
Sometimes I dont push the shift button when starting a sentence because I'm not a member of a grammar police organisation. But thats pretty much it.

But you miss the points of the thread:

-ALL BIG has higher readability
-Inserting some small letters when handwriting makes words look more smooth

Thats my opinion (small case just looks stupid on an address label).

I talk about handwriting, when using the keyboard, its extra effort pressing the shift key all the time, that should be clear?

My question among others is, where to draw the line? Change one or two letters? More? Just one? in each word (i dont think so)? I havent yet derived a system but I'm working on it.

Changing capitalization a lot would be offensive towards the postal worker, kindof, but just a few letters, its barely noticeable, could be the typeset when it's print. We have some kinds of small "d" here in Ireland but thats antiquated, they look similar to a small "d" when capitalized.

Or is it the big worldwide school system? You get a good degree when you copy off your school as close as possible, including inconsistencies and differences to schools in other countries.

Questions over questions, and
  • Having a hard time translating ideas to writing, sometimes using the wrong words altogether
may apply somehow but I really try to outline the problems.

What's your advice? Just copy whats in the address label? If its all lower case? Doesnt make sense to me it has poor readability when using handwriting, its not unreadable but not as easy as when capitalizing.

london could mean IONDON? 1ONDON? well everyone knows L O N D O N
but there are cases where it isnt actually clear, such as Canadian postal codes or even the UK one's, especially when using lowercase. It could be "O" or "0", "l" or "I"

and similar, the "7" in USA, if you write it like Europe seven, they easily confuse it with one, luckily when using handwriting, you can extend the symbol make it much longer so its really crystal clear.
 

Thread Starter

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
So Mark Zuckerberg has Dysgraphia

  • Having a hard time translating ideas to writing, sometimes using the wrong words altogether
Each time they want to engage with you or make you visit the portal again, they are so very poor at translating ideas to writing so they ask "Do you know...."

and you never are able to answer YES / NO. And if the answer is yes, what point does it make?

The idea is "Visit our portal again, just right now". Or whatever. But they just write "Do you know...".

Its Dysgraphia! Didnt know that one.
 

Thread Starter

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
you see that here



its all capitalized, but the "H" is small case.

Or is it just the typeset, and its all lowercase? Its not clear, could be either way.
 

ErnieM

Joined Apr 24, 2011
8,377
New Yorkers outraged as bureaucrats order city to change lettering on every single street sign

Yep, in 2003 the Feds mandated the use of a font called Clearview and a mix of capitals and lower case "for increased readability." All to be complete by 2018.

As someone getting on in years I tell ya the larger the font the better I can read it. And capital letters are bigger than lower case letters.

I believe the Feds extended the deadline to allow normal wear and tear replacements as opposed to a massive 28 million dollar crunch project. <citation needed>
 

Thread Starter

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
In Italy, "via" (for street) is often written in small letters then the name itself is capitalized.

Or something like DiCaprio, MacIntosh, iPad

It does exist.

How about WInDOWS

Thats the idea- one ore more letters use the small character representation.
Here also the size is slightly changed, and the size of the small letter is equalized.

I really have the impression all this can make capitalized words smoother to read,
while they are still much easier to read when handwritten.

Only large amounts of capitalized text are uncomfortable. Maybe because the brain is used to think- Capitalized letter = start of sentence?

If the following letters are slightly smaller there is still a distinction- just by size.

Is there a rulebook how this needs to be done (I guess no)?

Studying the stroke orders for japanese letters helps somehow- you'll always think whats the least effort or least resistance, what takes less time, is smoother to read and so on. If I'd see advantage to do it different from the stroke order I wouldnt bother but actually 95% or so it makes quite sense (in the rest of the cases it doesnt make an actual difference).
win.png
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
If you made a habit of mixing case in a word then I would have to block you. No caps at the beginning of sentences are barely tolerable. If I see a post of more than a few lines like that then I ignore it.
I'm similar in that way with people who use letters in their math formulas. I don't want see the damn formula filled up with the alphabet I want to see it solved with real numbers relating to the subject at hand.

If you have the time to post a formula or what you think is a formula but can't put the correct numbers in it and give an answer in numerical form I have no further interest in looking at what you just wrote or anything much else after that.
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,764
In Spanish, there is a typography (Windows has it) called versales where they are all capitals but with the size of small letters.

I use all capitals when I write in Assembler only, because I started like that some 20 (?) years ago and nobody told me it could be bad or there was a better way. Now, I cannot change. The other modality is hard for me to read now.

Otherwise I follow the rules I learnt. When I run across whimsical texts (appearance or content) I skip it on the spot. Better things to do in the rest of my life.

In those forums that have it, I use the ignore option to minimize the waste of time.

Reading a mixed text in the way as you mention, is like listening some one speaking in a confusing way. Not for me, thanks.
 

Kermit2

Joined Feb 5, 2010
4,162
this phone will do automatic grammar checks on text messages as i type and also correct some spelling mistakes(a feature i sometimes hate)
but when making posts here none of those features seem to work. since typing on these little touch screen keyboards is a pain in the ass i skip the extra shift and unshift strokes and just give the world words. what you choose to do with them causes me no loss of sleep.
:)
 

Sinus23

Joined Sep 7, 2013
248
This thread reminds me of the often frowned upon. Every First Letter Of A Word Capitalized. I don't normally do that in an online conversation, text or general writing but still use it when naming files.

As in. FullWaveRectifier.asc. Instead of. Full wave rectifier.asc.
 

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
This thread reminds me of the often frowned upon. Every First Letter Of A Word Capitalized. I don't normally do that in an online conversation, text or general writing but still use it when naming files.

As in. FullWaveRectifier.asc. Instead of. Full wave rectifier.asc.
When I read the opener of the "Thread" I interpreted it as "Cap - It - a Liza - Tion or Cap, it, a, liza, T - ion,

After reading the content then realize Capitalization? The bra1n w1ll automatically fill in the Mssing letters or even a missing ............. and put the nessary spelling and words needed to complete the sentence.

They did a study with mirrors that made a test subject view the world upside down and backward. After just a day or two the brain was able to quickly adjust to the new environment.

Although once the subject was no longer using the mirrors; it took a similar time to unwind the brain from the previous view "UpsideDown and BackWard"

kv

Edit: Now I understand why there's "Chaos" in the Universe.
 

Sinus23

Joined Sep 7, 2013
248
I actually got pretty good at reading the newspaper upside down when I was a kid from sitting at the table during breakfast and reading the newspaper my father was reading across the table.;) He almost never held it up but rather laid it out on the table.

About the missing letters. I read somewhere years ago that if you rearrange every letter of a word except the first and last one you'll still be able to read it. Might explain why errors make it to publishing even though they have been proofread.

Here is an article. I have not read the whole thing myself but it does have an good example of what I mean.
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt-davis/cmabridge/
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
Many people put value on beginning sentences with a Capital letter,
and also to spell names with capital letters.
That's because many people place value on communicating without looking like an idiot. You've stated two rules regarding the use of capital letters. There are more.

Of course you can break the rules if you choose. You will be judged accordingly. The guy on the street corner yelling and cursing at the sky is free to do that. But the rest of us will cross the street to avoid him.

Most of us would prefer to communicate briefly and efficiently - using the rules of convention - and move on. We respect the time and attention of the reader.
 

Thread Starter

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
That's because many people place value on communicating without looking like an idiot. You've stated two rules regarding the use of capital letters. There are more.

Of course you can break the rules if you choose. You will be judged accordingly. The guy on the street corner yelling and cursing at the sky is free to do that. But the rest of us will cross the street to avoid him.

Most of us would prefer to communicate briefly and efficiently - using the rules of convention - and move on. We respect the time and attention of the reader.
I just mentioned it but the thread isnt exactly about discussing wether to capitalize the start of sentences or not.

Mainly its about changing the appearance of some of the letters.

Of course when done like in the title its just mumbo jumbo

 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
Well OK, I'm probably missing the point of your thread.

But you did also say:

-ALL BIG has higher readability
-Inserting some small letters when handwriting makes words look more smooth
I believe those are both incorrect. All caps is much less easy to read. Readers are annoyed and slowed down, and feel as if they are being shouted at. Not cool.

You also said,
I can write about 20 pages in an evening, either with keyboard or pen, about any topic, without thinking...
which made me laugh out loud.
 
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