What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?

[TbGbe]

@pradagio said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:

i haven't had anyone complain in a quarter of a century.

That's most likely because you make the effort to punctuate and space out your text/paragraphs!
A solid wall of text like that would be almost unreadable

[Eggcorn]

@TbGbe said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:

That's most likely because you make the effort to punctuate and space out your text/paragraphs!
A solid wall of text like that would be almost unreadable

Oh yes! Frankly, a little dot alone isn't enough to tell where one sentence ends and another begins. But still, that's way better then making one huge run-on sentence! And I've seen people do that. Maybe not so much on this forum. But even native English speakers don't know how, or don't care to use punctuation.

[TbGbe]

@Eggcorn said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:

But even native English speakers don't know how, or don't care to use punctuation.

That is not limited to the English language though, I've seen similar in French, German and Spanish.

[Eggcorn]

@pradagio said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:

i don't think guigirl was suggesting what you think she was suggesting.
it seems to me that she was just pointing out some interesting ironies.

Perhaps. Maybe I took what guigirl said too seriously. But if you have standards, even (perhaps especially) low standards, people will expect perfection from you! Expect your teenager to not do recreational drugs, and he'll get on your case if you drink a little too much coffee.

[pradagio]

@Eggcorn said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:

But if you have standards, even (perhaps especially) low standards, people will expect perfection from you! Expect your teenager to not do recreational drugs, and he'll get on your case if you drink a little too much coffee.

i suppose so, but i don't think that's a bad thing necessarily provided the standards are worthwhile.

if the standards are worthwhile (eg such as maintaining good health), then imho one should get on one's own case before anyone else does.

if i neglect to live up to the standard and someone points out my lack, i would be grateful to have such assistance ... even if that person doesn't live up to the standard. my 'accuser' may be a hypocrite, but that is an irrelevancy.

there really isn't a fallacy of hypocrisy.
after all, the pot may call the kettle black, but the kettle remains black.

[Komposten]

@Pesala said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:

You got it right. It is called Title Case. Ideally, everyone would use it for Topic titles — I believe the rule is capitalise every word except prepositions and conjunctions.

I've never understood Title Case. As far as I'm concerned, it achieves nothing except make titles/text harder to read.

[Eggcorn]

@pradagio said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:

i suppose so, but i don't think that's a bad thing necessarily provided the standards are worthwhile.

I suppose it depends. If our teenager says:

Yeah, I really ought to stop doing cocaine. Hey, I know this isn't the same. But you do drink too much coffee, you ought to cut back.

That's one thing. He's acknowledging that he has a problem, while pointing out a far less serous problem his mom has. Because he'd like his mom to take better care of herself. That's okay, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this:

"Don't tell me to stop doing cocaine. You drink five cups of coffee per day!"

[Eggcorn]

@komposten said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:

I've never understood Title Case. As far as I'm concerned, it achieves nothing except make titles/text harder to read.

Huh. I've never had that problem. But it could just be that I'm used to title-case.

[Ayespy]

@guigirl I assumed it was a title. All Nouns and Verbs in Titles Are Capitalized.

[Ayespy]

@eggcorn There are any number of reasons.

Laziness

Arrogance (the rules of writing in English don't apply to me or I "know" better)

Borderline illiteracy - this will usually be accompanied by horrific spelling and terrible or no punctuation.

Coming from a native language that does not capitalize the beginnings of sentences or in some cases do not even have capitals in their alphabet (Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Farsi, Darsi, Pashto, Urdu, Hindi, Thai, Laotian and Cambodian and I don't know what else...)

I'm sure there may be other reasons as well.

[A Former User]

@eggcorn Yeah, it can make text harder to read. Add text-transform: capitalize (or uppercase) to all your text & I may ignore you because it’s a pain to get through it. For me, approximately the same is valid for bold, probably due to a lot of emphasis I put on these words while reading.

@Eggcorn Yeah, It Can Make Text Harder To Read. Add Text-Transform: Capitalize (Or Uppercase) To All Your Text & I May Ignore You Because It’s A Pain To Get Through It. For Me, Approximately The Same Is Valid For Bold, Probably Due To A Lot Of Emphasis I Put On These Words While Reading.

[shifte]

Aren't you perhaps mistaken?
Here is a global forum, not a US forum.
Dirty slang that makes no sense is much more spam, it's stupid not to write in plain English.
I don't care lower case.

[shifte]

Oh, come on, you're not gonna tell me?
You're perfect in Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic, right?
I don't know Arabic, but you're perfect in Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic, right?
自分でできないことで人をおとしめるのは人間として最低だぜ。

[Eggcorn]

@shifte What are you talking about?

[Eggcorn]

@potmeklecbohdan said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:

Yeah, it can make text harder to read.

What can make text harder to read?

[A Former User]

@eggcorn Too many capital letters (look at which post I replied to – oh wait, that parent post link isn’t visible on mobile).

[shifte]

Sorry Eggcorn, you're not bad at all.
Moderator, I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.
Please delete a fucking topic.

[Eggcorn]

@potmeklecbohdan Well, Title Case is only supposed to be used in titles. A whole paragraph in Title Case: that would be a pain to read!

And I did see the post you replied too. But I was still confused, I didn't know if you were replying to the correct post.

[Eggcorn]

I was just reading the forum rules, and they say this:

Some are native English speakers, some are native speakers of other languages.

That's another reason I don't like folks not using capitalization. I'm a native English speaker, and even I find nocaps a pain to read! If I weren't a native English speaker, I'd have a much harder time with it.

As @tbgbe and I were saying before, people sometimes do much worse than just not capitalize the first letter of a sentence. That's not kind to non-native (or native) English speakers.

[Komposten]

@eggcorn said in What's with People not Capitalizing the First Letter of a Sentence?:

I was just reading the forum rules, and they say this:

Well, some languages don't use capitalization at all. For those people it might be easier to write (and possibly also read) sentences in all lower-case. Just like how some languages have completely different word orders, or conjugation rules, so for speakers of those languages "broken English" might be the easiest to work with.

Different languages have different rules. Expecting everyone to write perfect English is nothing but ignorant. And so is expecting everyone to find perfect English easier to read than grammatically or syntactically imperfect English.

After all, studies have found that a group of non-native speakers from vastly different countries find it easier to understand each other's English than the English of a native speaker.