Sunday, August 02, 2009

A note on "ALL CAPS"

Contrary to what the whiners tell you, "all caps" is not always screaming.

Here are four examples:

1 - Instapundit:

August 2, 2009

TOWN HALLS GONE WILD: “On the eve of the August recess, members are reporting meetings that have gone terribly awry, marked by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior. In at least one case, a congressman has stopped holding town hall events because the situation has spiraled so far out of control.”

Hope and change!

Posted at 8:22 am by Glenn Reynolds

Glenn isn't screaming when he writes, " TOWN HALLS GONE WILD:".

2 -
The New York Times:
Conspiracy Trial for 100 Dissidents Begins in Iran

The Iranian authorities opened an extraordinary mass trial against more than 100 opposition figures, accusing them of conspiring with foreign powers to stage a revolution.

The all caps names of the writers are not screaming.

3 - Cue Cards are routinely written in all caps:


The reader of the cue card knows s/he isn't meant to scream.

4 - Teleprompter scripts are routinely written in all caps:

The reader of the cue card knows s/he isn't meant to scream.

WHEN I USE ALL CAPS I AM NOT SCREAMING.

Get used to it: It's in your head, not mine.

BOTTOM-LINE: All caps is just another typography choice, a way of making a line of type or several lines distinct - like italics. When scrolling through a lot of similarly sized lowercase paragraphs, all caps sticks out. I want all my posts to stick out - especially the ones which which aren't really essays or like a typical column, but merely simple, direct, blunt BULLET POINTS.

That's why I frequently use all caps. When I write a post which is more like a short essay, then I usually use lowercase & caps.

2 comments:

  1. I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ACTUALLY SPENT TIME PUTTING THAT POST TOGETHER.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:12 PM

    Sorry, you are yelling and you are annoying the readers. The examples you give are not good ones. Ego is a hard thing, I realize, but so is admitting a mistake.

    ReplyDelete