# Why Are Caps Rude? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 10, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753 "2003-09-10T14:23:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![corndog\_man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@corndog\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corndog_man)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/1 "2003-09-10T14:23:03Z")
I do a lot of typing on my computer. A lot of the messages I send are to message boards like this. To me, it is a pain to keep pressing the shift key. It is so much easier to type like this, IT IS SO MUCH MORE CONVIENENT AND QUICK TO TYPE LIKE THIS. It really is. Some anal retentive person several years has stated that this was “yelling” or “screaming” and has deemed that this is rude. This is a silly rationale. How can reading someone’s message be considered a loud voice? Sounds schitzophrenic to me. I WANT THE FREEDOM TO LET MY MESSAGE ACROSS LIKE THIS. GOD THIS IS SO EASY TO TYPE. HOW FAST IT IS. SOME ASSHOLE WITH VOICES IN HIS HEAD SAID THIS WAS YELLING AND THE WHOLE INTERNET COMMUNITY BELIEVES HIM. It’s just words after all. ---
**Author:** ![FP\_work](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/85e7bf/32.png) [@FP\_work](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FP_work)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/2 "2003-09-10T14:38:30Z")
YES. LET’S ALL WRITE LIKE THIS FROM NOW ON. WHO ARE THESE ANTI-CAPS BIGOTS WHO ARE TRYING TO OPPRESS OUR PEOPLE??!!?! ---
**Author:** ![In\_Conceivable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/4bbf92/32.png) [@In\_Conceivable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/In_Conceivable)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/3 "2003-09-10T14:40:49Z")
All Caps is also harder to read. It is so easy to hit the shift key that I don’t even think about it when I do it. I guess you hunt-and-peck type? ---
**Author:** ![Spiny\_Norman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Spiny\_Norman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiny_Norman)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/4 "2003-09-10T14:51:59Z")
If you want to communicate effectively, you have to stay within the conventions of your chosen media. Convention says pretty clearly that caps are used for emphasis. Incidentally, experiments were made, eons ago, to determine what all caps (or all lowercase) do to the readability of a text - back when, not having to encode an extra bit of information per character could make a notable difference in transmission speed. It is considerably slower to read an all-caps text. (Of course, telex machines were then designed to print in all caps anyway. Go figure. Probably Management was involved somewhere.) Not staying within convention - and making your communication harder to read, to boot - means that you’re making the rest of us work harder at decoding your communication for your own convenience’s sake. Some would call that rude. I’d just skip your posts. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/5 "2003-09-10T15:10:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by corndog man \* > **IT IS SO MUCH MORE CONVIENENT AND QUICK TO TYPE LIKE THIS.** No, it’s more convenient to learn how to properly type. For me, it’s more convenient to ignore posts that are in all caps, as they are harder to read, are distracting, and are rude. They convey that you’re not interested enough to offer the courtesy of common convention, and past experience suggests that users who type in all caps have little interest in normal discourse. Is that what you’re trying to convey? ---
**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/6 "2003-09-10T15:23:43Z")
Whenever I read text in all caps, I imagine the loud-mouth guy of the _Dilbert_ strip is speaking, er, yelling the words. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/7 "2003-09-10T15:29:29Z")
[from Miami University](http://www.units.muohio.edu/mcs/suppctr/lis/mcisdocumentation/readabledocs/topic6.shtml#caps) > [@](#): > > All Caps > > Don’t use more than a few words in ALL CAPS per paragraph because it actually lessens comprehension. Use of caps for major headings and occasional words is appropriate. > > Why doesn’t ALL CAPS work? Capitalizing for emphasis encourages word-by-word reading rather than reading for overall sense. Typing words in all capital letters destroys the shape of the word—all words become rectangles—and therefore obscures information that readers use to identify words. > > Other techniques for emphasis are more effective, including boldface type, type size, white space and boxing. [from _Type & Layout: How typography and design can get your message across—or get in the way_ by Colin Wheildon](http://www.howardprinting.com/7_1/article3.htm) > [@](#): > > Text set in ALL CAPS is extremely hard to read [from Techwriter-L](http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/archives/9910/techwhirl-9910-00852.html) > [@](#): > > As Graham points out, the research indicates that text set > in all caps reduces reading speed. Reduced reading speed > generally results in reduced comprehension. It is therefore > generally unwise to set text type in all caps because we > want to enhance rather than reduce comprehension. [from designer Weston Becker](http://www.uoregon.edu/~wbecker1/style/design_tips.html) > [@](#): > > Do not use all caps or underlining. Readers read the shapes of words and shapes of letters that create words. Readers rarely read letter for letter (see page 44). This is why it is important for words and letters in text to have unique shapes that can be identified. Since capitalized letters and words all appear to have the same shape (rectangular) they are extremely difficult to read. Underlining affects word shapes by splicing off descending parts of characters. According to one study, comprehension dropped 23% when readers were forced to read text set in all caps. [from the KSU Design Tips page](http://www.ksu.edu/tools/design/tips.html) > [@](#): > > Text that’s all capitalized, all bold, or all underlined is just plain hard to read. Special fonts or formats are meant to accent text, not overpower it. Do use special fonts on headlines, subheadings, and category titles for emphasis. Enough? ---
**Author:** ![Frank\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8c91f0/32.png) [@Frank\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank_2)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/8 "2003-09-10T15:29:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by corndog man \* > \*\*I WANT THE FREEDOM TO LET MY MESSAGE ACROSS LIKE THIS. \*\* You have that freedom. Just like I have the freedom to ignore anything written in all caps by some fucktwad\* who doesn’t believe in the basic rules of written English. _I only threw that in to meet the Pit minimum insult quota. 🙂_ ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/9 "2003-09-10T15:30:10Z")
caps suk hard and u shouldnt usethem n stuff. * * * Don’t you want the people reading what you’ve typed to have a pleasant experience? And yes, all caps do look like screaming DON"T THEY DUMMY!!! ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/10 "2003-09-10T15:39:11Z")
ajfdlkjanklrenoiafpjdfsalfdsajf ajiofhioahneznakgfuidfxzyguda 7328q-075rzfl/dj jdolja[fjeae ajfoioinfelkanf. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/11 "2003-09-10T15:42:10Z")
[hijack] Telex machines (and line printers, in general) were made all caps for speed. The print chains were physical devices that had to have each character moved to the correct location over the paper before striking the letter. The more characters one allowed on the print chain, the more movement was required by the print chain and the longer it took to position any given character before striking. In the interest of speed, all lower case characters were simply “mapped” to the upper case character strikers so that regardless of capitalization, the same striker would be used, shortening the chain and increasing the speed. (On some chains, they simply mapped all lower-case and special characters to the blank, so that nothing even printed if the “wrong” signal came along.) That changed when printer technology shifted from striking characters to ink-jet and laser technology in which the formation of a character did not rely on a finding a physical character to strike. [/hijack] As to the OP, the decision regarding caps was not made because “Some anal retentive person several years has stated” that it was bad. All forms of communication develop conventions. (Without conventions, there would be no communication, as each attempt would require the participants to work out the protocols at the beginning of each attempt at communication.) The convention used in the days of ascii text exchanges was to highlight words by flanking them with underscores or asterisks or some other special character and to emphasize a “raised voice” by using all caps. It was not anal retentive; it was not capricious. It was a convention. Such conventions still apply in many newsgroups (although greater flexibility in using HTML has decreased, not eliminated, the practice in places where ascii text is still the _primary_ medium of expression). Nothing in spoken language _prevents_ you from ending each statement in a rising inflection or each question in a falling inflection. Those are simply conventions that we use in most Indo-European languages. It is the convention that we do not grab the head of a person to whom we are speaking, turn that person’s head, and speak directly into the ear, although that may get the sounds of our words to them more directly. (Silly conventions!) Of course, you may violate any convention if you wish. You will simply appear to be an idiot to anyone with whom you speak. Given that the point of posting is to provide information or exchange views with other posters, doing something to your post that will deliberately cause them to ignore you (especially while declaring your laziness as your justification) is just a bit self-defeating. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/12 "2003-09-10T15:46:22Z")
If you’re not going to put any effort into _how_ you present a statement, why should anyone suspect you put any more effort into _what_ you had to say? ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/13 "2003-09-10T15:50:48Z")
Why is yelling rude? I do a lot of yelling during my day. A lot of the messages I yell are to my co-workers at work. To me, it is a pain to keep my voice down. It is so much easier to hear my when I yell like this, IT IS SO MUCH MORE CONVIENENT AND QUICK TO YELL LIKE THIS. It really is. Some person several years ago has stated that this “yelling” or “screaming” is rude. This is a silly rationale. How can it be considered rude to hear a loud voice? Sounds schitzophrenic to me. I WANT THE FREEDOM TO LET MY MESSAGE ACROSS LIKE THIS. GOD THIS IS SO EASY TO YELL. HOW FAST IT IS. SOME ASSHOLE WITH VOICES IN HIS HEAD SAID THIS YELLING WAS RUDE AND THE WHOLE COMMUNITY BELIEVES HIM. It’s just yelling after all. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/14 "2003-09-10T15:55:20Z")
Why, because his statements are obviously so gloriously bursting with supernal revelations that he just has to type and post them _right this minute_ or they’ll vanish into the aether. Pausing only to hit the caps lock, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/15 "2003-09-10T15:57:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Spiny Norman \* > **Incidentally, experiments were made, eons ago, to determine what all caps (or all lowercase) do to the readability of a text - back when, not having to encode an extra bit of information per character could make a notable difference in transmission speed. It is considerably slower to read an all-caps text. (Of course, telex machines were then designed to print in all caps anyway. Go figure. Probably Management was involved somewhere.)** From the _Jargon File_: There is a widespread legend (repeated by earlier versions of this entry, though tagged as folklore) that the uppercase-only support of various old character codes and I/O equipment was chosen by a religious person in a position of power at the Teletype Company because supporting both upper and lower cases was too expensive and supporting lower case only would have made it impossible to spell ‘God’ correctly. Not true; the upper-case interpretation of teleprinter codes was well established by 1870, long before Teletype was even founded. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/16 "2003-09-10T16:05:12Z")
> [@](#): > > To me, it is a pain to keep pressing the shift key. Amen, brother! Er, I mean AMEN BROTHER! All day long, my poor pinkies, just pressing pressing pressing with no respite! Sometimes I have to ice them down when I get home. Oh! And “q” and “p” too; it’s a real pain to have to extend the pinkies out that 1/64 of a inch to reach those keys. I suggest we do away with them as well. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put my poor left pinky in a sling. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/17 "2003-09-10T16:28:07Z")
I AM AMAZED THAT NO ONE HAS TAUGHT YOU ABOUT THE **SIZE** TAG YET! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/18 "2003-09-10T16:36:40Z")
**Jodi** gets her left pinkie in a sling for straining to reach the caps lock, **friedo** gets his ass in a sling for teaching the idiot how to misuse the size tags. Sounds fair. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![porcupine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac91a4/32.png) [@porcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/porcupine)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/19 "2003-09-10T16:40:28Z")
ithinkitistoomuchtroubletousethespacebaraswell. i’mgoingtostarttypingmessageslikethisallthetime. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753/20 "2003-09-10T16:46:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by porcupine \* > \*\*ithinkitistoomuchtroubletousethespacebaraswell. i’mgoingtostarttypingmessageslikethisallthetime. \*\* Funny, but the no caps, no spaces message is actually easier for me to read than the ALL CAPS messages. Maybe it will catch on, Porcupine. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-caps-rude/200753.md?page=2)