Nov 4th, 2009
Abject capitalization
I’m really sorry to those of you who either:
Miss Earth contestants and their inability to use correct capitalization
1. Have native languages that call for capitalization of all nouns (This means you, Deutschland!);
2. Learned to speak MySpace before English.
Still: the awful Internet tendency to either capitalize or lowercase random words which should not be not capitalized or lowercased has to stop. Please.
I’m normally not a stringent grammar person. I thank goodness I have found the Grammar Girl podcast series (which is, happily, very searchable) so I can find quick and dirty tricks to help me remember how and when to use “comprise”. And I probably have to turn to my AP or Guardian (or EJC, or European Commission, or Times, or or or!) more times than I should.
But the capitalization issue, along with random or missing articles (the/an/a) are driving me crazy in an editing project with which I am currently busy. I’m editing what is essentially a series of encyclopedia articles about media conditions in a particular country, all written by non-native English speakers.
I thought Mario Garcia asked a great question on his design/innovation blog when he asked, “Do we associate all things Internet with lower case?”
This question, and Garcia’s redesign of the Daily Handelsblatt, a German newspaper, sparked a series of posts about whether the paper should use a logo with an uppercase “H”.
I most liked these two quotes Garcia posted on this topic:
From Oliver Reichenstein, lead designer of zeit.de, tagesanzeiger.ch and krone.at: “Yes, many internet users believe that internet is all about ‘lower case’ as the urls are fed so, therefore anything that is associated with it should reflect it. I think the truth is while the url in ‘lowercase’ is only a function of the medium, the internet, where the information being served, it has nothing to do with the branding of the Online product. On the contrary the Online property is best represented with a look that can then be extended to other areas and in this instance by the square in the brand colour and the cap ‘H’ - a direct take-out from the brick and mortar presence of the product.”
Also, from Rodrigo Fino, Garcia Media Latin America/Buenos Aires: “Lowercase was used because of technical restrictions years ago. Today all internet browsers and email programs understand uppercase.”
Exactly! So regardless of technology, branding or generational differences, can’t we all just go ahead and just embrace correct usage of English, which does not call for capitalization of anything other than proper nouns? Please?
Even online!
[...] Kathlyn Clore » Blog Archive » Abject capitalization kathlynclore.com/?p=561 – view page – cached ::why not:: [...]
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by GrammarGirl: An interesting post that speculates about why people seem to prefer lowercase letters online: http://j.mp/13kjKI...
I found your link from a Tweet sent out by Grammar Girl. This is a really interesting post but have you noticed the recent rebranding campaigns of several large companies using lowercase as their logo, i.e. Xerox, Nickelodeon, Syfy… There is a movement in trends.
Why is the word “Online” capitalized in the Reichenstein quotation?
Actually, while it is true that domain names are case-insensitive it is not factual to say that lower-case was used for technical reasons.
As far as I am aware, from HTTP 0.9 at least, upper-case URL:s were quite possible. And if we look even further back into the mists of time it is lower-case that is the new things and in ancient times upper-case was what computers were all about.
I always thought all lower-case was more of an ee cummings inspired generational thing. The people who I know who actually use the style casually all switch to more proper capitalization in formal contexts.
That being said, I am a non-native speaker of English, so I am not always the best informed.
First, thanks for reading and thanks to @GrammarGirl for the tweet!
@Tajiana - I have also noticed rebranding campaigns with lowercase letters. But bloggers and journalists don’t have to live and die with PR campaigns. We need to exercise good judgment about these issues. An example from my adventures in sports reporting: Any literature put out by the PGA Tour will always have the words “PGA Tour” in all capital letters, like this: “PGA TOUR”. When I was a student, I thought I needed to follow suit. But I learned from my editors that this capitalization is a ploy on the part of PR people hoping to ensure their brand is always spelled in all capital letters - thus being easily noticed by readers. Journalists and bloggers should not retain the capital letters in this case.
But I think for brands that use lowercase or caps in atypical fashion offline as well as online - like iPhone or eBay - it’s OK for journalists and bloggers to retain the quirky caps/lowercase.
@Jeff - I retained the capitalization or lowercase in the original quotes I pulled from Mario’s site (I’m guessing that he in turn retained the authors’ original spellings and capitalization). The word “Online” is likely in caps because the author is German. But I’m speculating.
@Viktor - I don’t know enough about the history of HTTP to know if you are correct or if the designers I have quoted are correct. That said, I think it is particularly interesting that ICANN has recently approved foreign characters (like umlauts) for top-level domains. I wonder about the implications of this.
‘The word “Online” is likely in caps because the author is German. But I’m speculating.’
Nouns are capitalised in German. Adjectives are not. So this was simply a grammatical failure. [I resisted the temptation to say 'grammar fail'. ;)]
I think you’re missing a simple piece of the puzzle; when typing quickly, especially in form of an email, instant message, text, etc. It is simply easier and faster to disinclude capital letters. The fact remains that capitalization serves little to no current linguistic function- we know Mary and mary are both referring to a person, and we know that a period marks the end of a sentence- capitalization of the first word of the next sentence is really redundant. The speed at which the Internet functions and the fact that you can type much faster than you write serves as a sort of filter, stripping away redundancies and extraneous information. Capitalization has also taken on a very different role in online communication- rather than being used grammatically, in my experience it’s more often used to convey emotion or emphasis- important information generally carried by voice and inflections that are lost in written communication. Basically capitalization for grammatical purposes is extra effort for no extra information in the majority of cases; combine this with an increased functionality elsewhere, and you really look quite silly bemoaning the current situation which is incredibly functional.