No personal offense taken! LOL.
Actually, my ALL CAPS habit originated in the classroom at the blackboard.
My cursive is not uniform and beautiful though readable.
Particularly in the back of a classroom, it can be a challenge—especially an ESL classroom in China . . . with 70+ students . . .
They initially fuss at the ALL CAPS because it is virtually another alphabet for them though they have supposedly “learned” it.
But after a few weeks, they welcomed it because it was easier to read from the back of the classroom.
I don’t recall research on ease of reading. Should look it up.
What is easier about lower case to you??? Are you sure it’s EASE or merely a . . . biased conviction that it’s easier?
No offense meant, BTW.
To me . . . and I think logically . . .
saying that ALL CAPS 100% always = screaming
is
equal
to 90% of the students walking into a classroom and cursing the student in the 2nd row for screaming at them
MERELY BECAUSE he happened to be wearing a red shirt.
CAPS COULD MEAN
—a very slightly raised tone as in OH?
—a lowered tone as in a disappointed OH.
—a curious tone as in WOW—tell me more!
—a slowed speaking as in WELLL, I’ll . . . have to think a bit about that . . .
—a longer than usual pause after a word for emphasis . . .
—a THRILLED intent as in WOW—WONDERFUL.
etc.
It IS arbitrary to ascribe it always to SCREAMING in a negative way.
To say ALL CAPS are more DIFFICULT to read is an emperical question. And I don’t know the research on it. And for what percentage of the population would it truly be more difficult, if any? I don’t know. Good question.
To me, LOWER CASE IS more difficult—especially as far away from my eyes as the screen is.
I have to bump the size up a lot to compensate. And that often mangles the line lengths and causes all kinds of other problems on various websites.
But . . . it’s my problem and I try not to fuss.
Thanks for your kind input.
Don't know really. Doesn't seem to flow as well. Perhaps familiarlity. I do know that I naturally tend to pass over posts in all caps if they're very lengthy at all, and even email. Seems cumbersome, for whatever reason.
I worked as a computer programmer for many years coding in COBOL. We had to enter the letters in caps for them to be recognized by the compiler which translated the words into computer executable instructions. We also had to use ‘ instead of “ for our literals.
When I first started programming, we had to literally print the words and letters on paper coding sheets to be keypunched into cards. I’ve developed the habit of printing everything instead of using cursive writing because it is easier to read and I had to do the coding that way anyhow.
I have no problem typing or reading caps because thats how I worked for several years.
I have also suffered abuse from the self righteous individuals who haven’t had my 35+ years experience in working with computers.
The best thing to do is simply ignore them because they know no better.