[fuser]

Why in the name of everything that is holy and sacred this concept of letter case is used? What purpose does it serve? I can write in three scripts Arabian, Devnagri and Latin and former two (amongst many) doesn't require letter cases and it doesn't feel at all that they are missing out on some great linguistic tool.






Also I am pretty sure this is not the right subforum. But then I don't think any subforum is good enough for this topic.

[Potemkin]

Lower case letters were invented to allow us to do joined-up writing.

[fuser]

Its a waste then.

[Potemkin]

It's easier than having to write everything in capital letters, which is what the Romans did. In fact, the Romans did have a primitive cursive script, but it had little resemblance to the upper-case Latin alphabet, was notoriously indecipherable, and looked like some form of zany shorthand. The invention of lower-case letters made things a lot easier and clearer, and allowed us to be more creative in our script. This process culminated in Florence during the Renaissance, when most modern types of cursive handwriting were invented.

[fuser]

So why don't do away with capital letters, then?

[Soulflytribe]

I just don't understand why English-speakers use capital letters to refer to nationalities and ethnicities. I think it's so weird...
You don't have to do that when writing in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese or German.

[Potemkin]

So why don't do away with capital letters, then?

Because they look awesome on monuments and public buildings?

And, in fact, a lot of modern poets and writers have done away with capital letters; for example, if you read e.e. cummings' poems (he even wrote his own name in lower-case letters only) or Hank Bukowski's stories, you'll find nary a capital letter in any of them.

[Fasces]

Without capital letters, how would we capitalize 'I' and show that we are Important?

Think, fuser.

[fuser]

I just don't understand why English-speakers use capital letters to refer to nationalities and ethnicities. I think it's so weird...
You don't have to do that when writing in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese or German.

If that's the case then it is weird. Damn you our former British overlords.

Because they look awesome on monuments and public buildings?

And, in fact, a lot of modern poets and writers have done away with capital letters; for example, if you read e.e. cummings' poems (he even wrote his own name in lower-case letters only) or Hank Bukowski's stories, you'll find nary a capital letter in any of them.

in modern times and from a programmer's pov case sensitivity is just a hassle. I am not so convinced on monuments and public buildings, awesome monuments will look awesome even if some undecipherable gibberish is written on it. But thanks for the names of these glorious revolutionaries fighting against the tyranny of capital letters.

Without capital letters, how would we capitalize 'I' and show that we are Important?

Think, fuser.

use four "i" in bold......."iiii".

[Potemkin]

If that's the case then it is weird. Damn you our former British overlords.

Actually, it used to be even worse - before the mid-19th century, we wrote almost every noun with a capital letter, like ze Germans. When you read the work of poets such as Keats or Wordsworth, you're actually reading a text which has been modernised to conform with modern English orthography by having all the capitalised nouns replaced with lower-case letters. So, hey, it could have been worse.

[Lexington]

in modern times and from a programmer's pov case sensitivity is just a hassle.

You should use FORTRAN 77. Preferred case: ALL CAPS. If you use case: Case ignored!



Also limited to 80 characters per line because, you know, someone might want to port your program to punchcards.

[fuser]

What about "in modern times" part of my quoted post?

Fortran (BASIC and Cobol are also case insensitive) is pre civilization and oh I am blaming Latin script and not Programming languages. Case sensitivity is necessary only because of this script hence the blame goes on the script.

[Potemkin]

You should use FORTRAN 77. Preferred case: ALL CAPS. If you use case: Case ignored!

Ah, that brings back happy memories. When I was doing my science MPhil back in the early 90s, I wrote all my programs in FORTRAN 90. All my latte-slurping colleagues in astrophysics were using that newfangled C++ thing, but we nuclear physicists would only use Ol' Faithful.

[mikema63]

Do you still do physics?

I've never even questioned the existence of case, perhaps using upper case shows that your more upper class than the dirty poor?

[fuser]

perhaps using upper case shows that your more upper class than the dirty poor?

REALLY, MIKE.

[mikema63]

WHY YES, WOULDN'T WANT TO SEEM POOR WHEN YOU WRITE A LETTER.

THE BEST WRITERS TO THIS VERY DAY USE ALL CAPS SO THAT YOU KNOW HOW SMART THEY ARE WHEN YOU READ THEIR POSTS!

[Rich]

There is a constant war between civilisation and barbarism. We've had the Huns, the Mongols, the Nazis and more recently Java.

Capital letters are vital for the programmer. They allow Camelcase. Depending on whether the first letter is capital can distinguish between a class and variable. Java's all uppercase Constants is reason alone to spurn this awful language. To convert a string to upper or lower case is a trivial one line line function / method.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

Why in the name of everything that is holy and sacred this concept of letter case is used? What purpose does it serve? I can write in three scripts Arabian, Devnagri and Latin and former two (amongst many) doesn't require letter cases and it doesn't feel at all that they are missing out on some great linguistic tool.

Unlike cursive writing based on the Latin alphabet, the standard Arabic style is to have a substantially different shape depending on whether it will be connecting with a preceding and/or a succeeding letter, thus all primary letters have conditional forms (allographs), depending on whether they are at the beginning, middle or end of a word, so they may exhibit four distinct forms (initial, medial, final or isolated). However, six letters (و ز ر ذ د ا) have only an isolated or final form, and so force the following letter (if any) to take an initial or isolated form, as if there were a word break. For example, أرارات (Ararat) has only isolated forms, because each letter cannot be connected to its adjacent one.

Some letters look almost the same in all four forms, while others show considerable variation. Generally, the initial and middle forms look similar except that in some letters the middle form starts with a short horizontal line on the right to ensure that it will connect with its preceding letter. The final and isolated forms are also similar in appearance but the final form will also have a horizontal stroke on the right and, for some letters, a loop or longer line on the left with which to finish the word with a subtle ornamental flourish. In addition, some letter combinations are written as ligatures (special shapes), including lām-alif.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_alphabet

Oh yes, I can see that Arabic would be a far simpler writing system to use.

[Nets]

Java's all uppercase Constants is reason alone to spurn this awful language.

I THOUGHT THAT THIS CONVENTION WAS INHERITED FROM C++ (AND FROM C PREPROCESSING).

Anyhoo, I was always told that lower case/upper case makes English easier to read, that is mixed case text is easier on the eyes than all-caps. This may or may not be true, I don't know. Even numerals in older texts are "mixed case",



(TeX still has this option, I think.)