"Is it really that difficult to use capital letters?" Topic

Or to use punctuation?

Look. I am sure that you are a very nice person.

Why do you not care if your messages are understood?

The following excuses do not wash:

1) Foreigner. Nonsense. They do not count. I am addressing native English speakers here. Foreigners write better English than native English speakers do. They are taught English, and taught well. I keep seeing foreigners apologize on these pages for their English, and frankly, they get their ideas across better than Anglophones.

2) "Why are you hassling me? Everyone understands what I am saying?" No, they do not. You are using that as an excuse for laziness.

3) "You hypcrite! You make mistakes all the time, too, OFM!"
Darn right I do, but they are MISTAKES. They are not deliberate. Usually.
However, Faulkner, Twain and Shalespeare made deliberate mistakes for character purposes.

4) "English is an evolving language." Oh, yeah. Drag out that hairy and hoary old chestnut to justify laziness. I don't buy that as an excuse.

5) "I use text messaging all the time!" I can see. Guess what, Bub. TMP is accessed through a keyboard, which has SHIFT keys, and punctuation keys.

************

Yeah, it's that time of year again. Time for the OFM to dust off his Grammer and Speling Facscist™ (triple sic) badge and annoy the careless.

**************

And, here is the above without punctuation or capitals:

or to use punctuation look i am sure that you are a very nice person why do you not care if your messages are understood the following excuses do not wash 1 foreigner nonsense they do not count i am addressing native english speakers here foreigners write better english than native english speakers do they are taught English and taught well i keep seeing foreigners apologize for their englishon these pages and frankly they get their ideas across better than Anglophones 2 why are you hassling me everyone understands what I am saying no they do not you are using that as an excuse for laziness 3 you hypcrite you make mistakes all the time too OFM darn right I do but they are MISTAKES they are not deliberate usually however Faulkner Twain and Shalespeare made deliberate mistakes for character purposes 4) english is an evolving language oh yeah drag out that hairy and hoary old chestnut to justify laziness i don't buy that as an excuse 5) i use text messaging all the time i can see guess what bub tmp is accessed through a keyboard which has shift keys and punctuation keys yeah it's that time of year again time for the OFM to dust off his grammer and speling facscist triple sic badge and annoy the careless

It is the responsibility of the writer to make sure that his message is understood by the reader, if he wants it to be taken seriously.

I vote with the OFM.

Is it really that difficult to use capital letters?

nOT aT AlL.

See?
John possesses elementary typiong skils!

Nice play Shalespeare!

w.

Hear, hear! I got slammed because I was less sensitive to a new comer.

make me

much as i like you john you aint in charge

this whole business is just about feeling superior and bossing other folks around and weve had it a million times before here

im boycotting capitals and punctuation until you get off your high horse

It's the TMP's fault. The frequent fast paced arguments made my typing sloppy. Can't get the words out fast enough for the all too important, life and death debates about figure size and cuff colors on my SYW Austrians.

I do not understand why you are ranting about something that is so clearly self-evident.

What kind of drinks can you make with triple sic?

Allen

Let's see how long you can hold out, Pol. Sooner or later you will slip.

Besides, how high is a 28mm horse?

I HAVE NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER.

What about krepost inserting random dunja foreign words into Flusigkeit otherwise normal paracaidista English sentences?

im in ur base killing yer guyz cause im l33t!

"Shalespeare"?
Yes, I made a proof-reading mistake, brought about by fat fingers.

A proper margrite is made with triple sic. As is a Tom Collins.

Fastest propagating thread ever.

No, Polynikes.
It is not about feeling superior.
It's all about being frustrated at not being able to understand what they are typing.

AaronT – LOL
OMG OFM 1z teh r0x0r btw und 1 t1nx h3 iz teh k3wl1zt

Or in other words, I agree with OFM – we have a perfectly good (or at least passably acceptable) language. We should use it.

The Bard spelt his own name many ways: I would not discount this as an error, but claim it as an until-now undiscovered variant.

Thanks, Jay. I thought a margerita might be made with triple sic, but wasn't sure.

Allen

you had captial letters in your example ofm you probably did not expect us all to come on here and type completely with lower case letters i am not a stickler on this i even like to type in lower case when doing technical work like when writing code and such however there is one lady in my office that only writes completely in lower case it does begin to get irritating after a while at least she uses punctuation though so if all caps is shouting is this whispering

Since my stroke a few years ago, it is hard for me to see and hit all the right keys in order.

Not a problem on word with red and green underlines but more difficult when I do not use the preview button on TMP.

I have corrected Polynikes piece for him.

"make me much as i like you john you aint in charge
this whole business is just about feeling superior and bossing other folks around and weve had it a million times before here im boycotting capitals and punctuation until you get off your high horse"

There, much worse.

Also, changing 'before' to 'B4' would cater to that much desired younger demographic.

Dear John,

I write in response to your missive of the 27th inst. Whilst, I agree whole heartedly with your fervent desire to see better use of punctutaion, spelling and grammar, I feel I must part company on the issue of capitalisation or the lack therof.

If you scan the threads and skeins of TMP you will find that many of our brethren have a particular fondness for capitalising their witty observations and incisive revelations. This can be most commonly found on the CA board and although I am but an infrequent habitue of the Ranting board, I understand it occurs here, with distressing frequency.

As I understand it, CAPITALISING one's REMARKS is believed to add emPHASis to the writer's various points. An example might be. ' REAL AMERICANS support X or Y'. Or "I Don't CARE what FURRINERS think'. The examples are legion.

There is an opposing theory that suggests, that such folk may never have mastered joined up handwriting. To my mind a more convincing theory and in no way inconsistent with the others is that their literary diet has so far been confined to Marvel Comics, which, of course, make a virtue of CAPITALISATION for effect.

Now if you subscribe to this theory, I think you will find it adds enormously to your reading of many TMP posts, you just need to understand the code.

Next time you read for example ' Mexicans is taking OUR JOBS' or 'Democrats [sic]/ GDW are EVIL TRAITORS' simply insert the words (suitably CAPITALISED of course) 'WHOOSH' or 'BANG' or 'KERPOW'.

It took me a while, I will readily admit but it adds no end to the pleasure of reading these posts and in no way detracts from the intellectual force mustered by the writer's arguments.

I remain your obedient servant,

C. Marighela

"I have corrected Polynikes piece for him.

"make me much as i like you john you aint in charge
this whole business is just about feeling superior and bossing other folks around and weve had it a million times before here im boycotting capitals and punctuation until you get off your high horse"

There, much worse.

Also, changing 'before' to 'B4' would cater to that much desired younger demographic."

Aha! I knew their would be a resurgence of interest in the works of e.e cummings. What surprises me is the number of folk on TMP , who have adopted the literary styles of Allen Ginsberg or Hubert Selby Jr.

I have no problem painting capital letters verse lower case ones. This is what we are talking about, as this is The Mininatures Page right?

Excessive capitalization of the sort Carlos describes is TEDIOUS, and makes one think one is STRUGGLING through a nineteenth-century romance, or a letter written by a young lady of INSUFFICIENT education.

Allen

Good point. If I do a search on google, I don't need capitals. But when you are speaking to someone, or on a message board, it is a common curtesey to the reader to provide as accurate spelling, punctuation, and use of capitals as possible.

To me, someone who does not even make the attempt is rude. But even worse, oftentimes, when a see a solid block of a post with no capitals or punctuation, I get a few words into it and my eyes tend to glaze over, and I skip the rest of it. They may have made a good point, but it was lost because it was not worth sifting through.

john the ofm thanks for bringing this up i promise to try better next time remember that the romans wrote their emails with no spaces between sentences, was there even space between words caeser was very good at parsing messages at a glance

Well, crap. Clicked on a ranting thread by mistake.

all your capitals are belong to us

and your little dog puntucation too!

What is a capital letter???

A special note delivered to the priests at Jupiter's temple. Oh, sorry. That's a Capitol letter.

You made up this whole rant just so you could use the word "Anglophone" in a sentence.

BobandhisdogisrighttheRomansforatimedidnotusespaces intheriletterssomtimestheywereseperatedbydodts especiallyininscriptions

Sometimes they would even write a document and when they got to the end of a line
sdleif eht gnihguolp dellac saw siht ,noitcerid etisoppo eht ni etirw dluow
and was good for long scrolls

a translation for those who do not want read the above text

Bob and his dog is right the Romans for a time did not use spaces in their letters sometimes they were separated by dots especially in inscriptions

Sometimes they would even write a document, and when they got to the end of a line would write in the opposite direction. This was called "ploughing the fields"
and was good for long scrolls.

Thread hijack over,
-Joe

I would like to note that the letters would also be backwards in the "ploughing the feilds" method.

-Joe

whotheheckisthisofmdudeanywaywhatdoesheknownadaitellyou

Oh, and a pox on the "maximum word length exceeded" fucntion…. ;-)

In reply to Lugal.

did all that mean?

u r joking d00d

LOLZ

Are cockroach poets excused?

Carlos, you spelled "punctuation" and "thereof" wrong in your second sentence, which rather spoiled the effect.

I msut be gntietg old. I rlaley dnot urntadsned waht a lot of the aovbe msgaegss maen.

I rlaley feel msot deboouslmbactid.

Yep!

I like beer.

and cheese

and pie.

"That which we call a 'rose, by any other name would smell as sweet."
Shalespeare

I always use capitals when writing prose. However, my punctuation isn't as good as it should be. I do use all lower case when writing haikus or tankas -- it's an E.E. Cummings sort of thing.

I generally agree. I have, however, run into people with genuine handicaps on the Internets, such that typing capitals becomes a painful chore. So, I try to give the benefit of the doubt, just as I hold open the door for someone in a walker. Even if the door has one of those automatic door-openers.

Excessive capitalization of the sort Carlos describes is TEDIOUS, and makes one think one is STRUGGLING through a nineteenth-century romance, or a letter written by a young lady of INSUFFICIENT education.

Or a comic book.

Carlos, you spelled "punctuation" and "thereof" wrong in your second sentence, which rather spoiled the effect.

Not to mention "wholeheartedly." ‌

Carlos, you spelled "punctuation" and "thereof" wrong in your second sentence, which rather spoiled the effect.

Not to mention "wholeheartedly," also. ‌