Why do some internet users type in allcaps? I dont understand why they do this – even computer illterate people presumably know how to write in longhand, or type, and both of those methods use capital letters like normal people. Even books for the youngest children use proper capitals.
There seems to be less of this allcaps use today on the internet, but it still shows up on forums and comments. Why was it so prevelent, especially back in the day? I never once saw a typewriter, for example, spitting things out like this. What is the attraction to the capslock key? Why dont these users compare their own allcaps to the other postings and writings, which are normally in regular capitals?
I used to work with ex-Navy guys whose military communications had always been in ALL CAPS. They felt more comfortable using ALL CAPS and said that “this way we don’t have to worry about what to capitalize.” I think closer to the truth is that they weren’t sure what to capitalize, and ALL CAPS was a workaround to avoid being caught out.
My dad did it because he was a hunt-and-peck typer and it was easiest on him. He was in his sixties when I gave him his first computer and had no idea that this was considered a bad thing.
Even granting some of these theories like people are lazy or in a hurry or just don’t want to deal with capitalization, isn’t all lower case a more logical, less obtrusive approach than ALL CAPS.
My grandfather typed in all caps because he said it was easier for him to read. He didn’t much care what other people thought (and I’m pretty sure he never posted to a message board).
The USN guys (I used to be in the Navy, though not a radioman) were using teletype terminals (at least back in the days I was in, early-to-mid 1980s) and mixed case wasn’t an option. Don’t know why they’d feel more comfy with ALL CAPS after that, myself. Then again, that may explain why I wasn’t a lifer.
According to the story I was told, the Teletype people were stuck with a single case (i.e., teletype printouts could be all lower, or all upper, but not both). Supposedly the engineers preferred all lower case, based on studies which show that all lower case is much more readable than all upper case. That suggestion was shot down by the president of the company, however, who stated simply that if the teletype terminal printed all lower case it would be impossible properly to capitalize the name of the Deity, so he ordered all caps.
Probably apocryphal; anyone knowing better feel free to set me straight.
My Mom, who has been a professional secretary for over 40 years, still does this most of the time. Her bosses told her to write letters in ALL CAPS because according to them, it made them easier to read on the telex. I’ve tried to explain to her that a) this doesn’t make sense anymore and b) this didn’t even make sense at the time, as using all caps makes letterforms harder to distinguish, but old habits die hard…
Military communications evolved from telegrams, with the added requirement that they be encrypted. The limitations on bandwidth and encryption requirements made it easier to just use ALL CAPS.
Also, once this convention was established, the communications equipment had no capability of working with lower-case characters. Think defined-set teletype printers, for example.
Finally, once you get used to sending/receiving electronic communications in ALL CAPS, the use of it had a tendency to spread itself out to all forms of communication (e.g. mailed letters, orders, military instructions, etc.).
I can assure you that military people are not illiterates, and they know what to capitalize. Using ALL CAPS is just a convention.
Lots of people do write in all caps in longhand. I’m perfectly capable of writing in lovely fluid cursive script but I often write notes, shopping lists, and so on in capitals- a bit like Copperplate, with letters that would normally be capitalized written large instead.
When I was in the Navy, a lot of official documents (especially pay docs) were written in all-caps in a specific font (OCR-A, I think) which was required for use with the DoD’s optical character recognition equipment.
Also, in the Navy, for those instances where handwriting would be required (deck logs, edge lit status boards, watch quarter and station bills, etc.) a form of handwriting would be required that would specify all caps. This wouldn’t necessarily make the documents easier to read by itself - but by removing individual handwriting style from the mix you could minimize misinterpretation and confusion.
Long ago, in the days of character cell terminals (or paper, even), there were some that only supported single case, and those devices usually sent upper case characters. We DID have email and USENET in those days, and all caps typing was more common, sometimes because the person’s terminal couldn’t do anything else. Even when most people had full ASCII terminals and workstations, some people typed that way as an affectation, because it looked more “computery” or something. Thankfully, it mostly died out.
the reverse affectation of typing all in lower case and not punctuating came along some time later thankfully that idiocy died out too that was purely an affectation and not a limitation of the hardware people were using i really don’t want to read everything in missives from archie mode
That l33t nonsense had its run, too, later on. People will always find affectations to use online because it’s easier than actually, like, composing sentences.