What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?
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@komposten r u telling me that this is easier for non-native speakers to understand this then normal english would it really be better to write like this for ppl who are still learning english would u be able to make out anything i was saying if i kept this up for much longer
I hope you see my point: Texting-talk was never designed to make things easier, for a reader who's still learning English!
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Use this code to view capital first letter (and have peace of mind):
a:first-of-type:first-letter, h2.title:first-of-type:first-letter {text-transform: uppercase!important;}
Without code:
With code:
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I was looking tough the forums, and I found this:
@blackbird said in WTF? Vivaldi Has No Touch Screen Support?:
Whatever one chooses to call your terminology (I believe the better term for it is obscene, rather than cursing), it has no place in technical forums such as this - abbreviated or not. There are many alternative adjectives and forms of expression conveying strong opinion that don't cross into the realm of offensive language… and obscenity remains offensive to many many people, regardless of how many other folks may employ it in slang-laced postings. The irony is that such terminology can only reflect negatively upon the person using the expressions, and that seems highly counterproductive to the purpose of posting a reasoned technical/user complaint about a browser issue.
I think that sums up a big part of my problem with texting-talk and nocaps. That post is referring to obscenity, but it's much the same for texting-talk.
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@eggcorn said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:
I've noticed that a few people on this forum, especially new users asking for help with some problem with Vivaldi, don't capitalize the first letter of a sentence? What's up with that?
actually it's the internet and has always been up to the person posting. it's actually bad form to call it out or for that matter call people out on spelling or grammar.
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@drbonesaw Eh. Lots of things have ALWAYS BEEN UP TO THE PERSION POSTING!!!. Would you say that it's bad form to call people out for talking like this (allcaps and excessive punctuation)??? Or to call people out for using profanity???
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@eggcorn To be fair, allcaps and profanity are barred here by community rules. Ignorance or disregard of grammatic rules and spelling are not. And those who are ignorant of grammatic rules and spelling will consider you a jerk for correcting their "style."
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@ayespy It's not about the rules. It's about not looking childish. Like it or not, it's not just what you say that matters. It's the way you say it.
For example, you could have a valid criticism of Vivaldi. You could point out ways Vivaldi needs to improve. But if you say "Vivaldi is gay", you look childish. If you can't be bothered to capitalize the first letter of a sentence, you look childish. Etc.
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@eggcorn For me, in this chair, it is absolutely about the rules.
I'll provide guardrails for the rules. But the world is awash in nearly-illiterate English, and I harbor no illusions about my individual power to change that, nor the degree to which no-first-language speakers and writers consider themselves informed, smart and, truth told, probably better than me. So I only tend to police spelling and grammar with people whom I'm pretty sure would rather do it right, and appreciate the tip.
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I mentioned no-first-language speakers and writers. These are people who literally have never mastered any language, including that of their home land. I'm surrounded by them. They have no clue how this handicaps their lives in general. But I'm reminded of a very good attorney I worked with for several years. He was nearly albino, a California Methodist and American to his core, but he had studied Spanish in high school and college, and then studied abroad in Spain and Argentina. Truly bilingually fluent. He married a woman from Mexico City. Because of his language skills, he had a very large number of clients from Cuba, Mexico, Central America and South America. He was fluent with all of them. He mentioned to me wryly one day how many of his clients were bi-illiterate - that is, illiterate in both Spanish and English - unable to express themselves in writing in either language. Kind of sad - to never profit from the fruits of your own home tongue.
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@ayespy Texting-talk does have rules. So folks who speak it can't be illiterate, per se. But they could be literate in texting-talk, and illiterate normal English.
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@eggcorn said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:
So folks who speak it can't be illiterate, per sy.
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@eggcorn Text-ese is a form of Pidgin, not English, and I don't speak it. So I'm unconcerned with its rules. And since we are not texting on the forums, but rather writing in hopefully complete and coherent sentences in actual English, my learned skills should suffice for most purposes.
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@ayespy Well, I've never seen full-blown texting-talk here on the Vivaldi forms. I've seen nocaps, allcaps, and excessive punctuation. Those are all elements of texting-talk.
I think when you get down to it, it's less about English literacy and more about culture. Parts of the Internet have a very childish culture! And texting-talk (full-blown or partial), along with profanity, calling things "gay", etc., is the language of that culture.
To be clear: I'm not saying that everyone who doesn't capitalize the first letter of a sentence is childish. I've seen folks who use nocaps act like adults (on and off this forum). But when you see someone use allcaps, or nocaps, or something, it's a red flag (and it's annoying).
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@eggcorn said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:
@drbonesaw Eh. Lots of things have ALWAYS BEEN UP TO THE PERSON POSTING!!!. Would you say that it's bad form to call people out for talking like this (allcaps and excessive punctuation)??? Or to call people out for using profanity???
Yes you call people out for using all caps cause it's considered screaming. As for "excessive punctuation" there's no such thing. As for profanity not a damn thing wrong with it. The ones that have a issue with it need to grow up.
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@drbonesaw said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:
As for profanity not a damn thing wrong with it.
Still, the community rules are the rules. If one doesn't agree with them, they are welcome to post elsewhere where they feel less limited, or lobby Vivaldi to change the rules. 'Til then, those who find the rules juvenile are free to participate, instead, in more "grown up" fora.
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@drbonesaw Like many things, it depends on how you do it. Your use of profanity was mild, nothing that would have raised my eyebrows (rules aside). Lots of folks on the Internet who use profanity, they're not like that. They use it to make childish insults, and to be colossal pricks.
That's probably why that rule against profanity exists. Less out of fear that someone will be offended by the mild profanity you used. And more because, if you want to weed out the bad apples, it's easier to just ban profanity.
On a related note, even highlighting (such as ALLCAPS and bold) isn't bad when done right. When my post is long enough, I'll sometimes bold the most important parts. That's not immature screaming, that's helping people who want to skim the post rather than read the whole thing.
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@eggcorn said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:
@drbonesaw Like many things, it depends on how you do it. Your use of profanity was mild, nothing that would have raised my eyebrows (rules aside). Lots of folks on the Internet who use profanity, they're not like that. They use it to make childish insults, and to be colossal pricks.
That's probably why that rule against profanity exists. Less out of fear that someone will be offended by the mild profanity you used. And more because, if you want to weed out the bad apples, it's easier to just ban profanity.
On a related note, even highlighting (such as ALLCAPS and bold) isn't bad when done right. When my post is long enough, I'll sometimes bold the most important parts. That's not immature screaming, that's helping people who want to skim the post rather than read the whole thing.
I said nothing about bolding. That wasn't even part of the conversation.
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@drbonesaw ALLCAPS and bold are both highlighting, I'm pointing out a legitimate use of highlighting.
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Here's something Jamelle Bouie said in an article of his, I think it sheds some light on this:
If her peers have mocked her [...] it might have less to do with her use of Standard English overall and more to do with its use in an unusual setting. Remember, for many Americans, Standard English is only used in formal settings—business and school, but not home. By forgoing the vernacular in informal speech, she might come across as elitist, in the same way it might seem pretentious to purposefully use professional jargon when talking with a nonspecialist.
In other words, she isn’t being mocked for the English as much as she is for her refusal to code-switch and use informal language for an informal conversation. That might be unfair—let’s say you can’t actually speak the vernacular!—but it’s not evidence of pathology. Or, as a teacher might tell her students, there’s language for home, and there’s language for school, and sometimes, what works for one place might not work for the other.
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@Eggcorn
it is a test of your mental flex to weather you snag yourself on form instead on contenT.