Also, a lot of spam is in all caps, this lowering the reputation of all-caps text even more.
If it wasn’t associated with shouting, it would then be associated with something else (or else why do it?). But unless we can know what that hypothetical association would be, there is no way to know for sure that it would bother me.
But it probably would.
For some reason, my brain interprets all-caps in the voice of Zarkon the Space God, regardless of subject matter. Unaccented, unstressed, vaguely metallic-sounding, and pointlessly imperative:
ALL WILL BOW DOWN BEFORE ZARKON THE SPACE GOD!
YOU ARE ALL A BUNCH OF ELITIST JERKS! WHY DO YOU CRITICIZE ME FOR USING THE CAPSLOCKS BUTTON?
It takes me longer to read a post this way, not so much because of eyestrain, but because it takes some extra time to mentally add the cheesy reverb effect.
:eek: <------Zarkon
I also date from the days of teletypes, IBM 3270 all-uppercase display terminals, and IBM all-uppercase 1403 printers. Dual case was a more expensive option, so the average programmer or user didn’t get it because it really wasn’t necessary.
I agree it’s easier to read mixed case. However, I think much of the difference is simply what someone is accustomed to. If that’s all you had to read, it’d become easier as time went by.
My TTY shows all caps all the time…
Captions on tv are all Caps most of the time.
Shucks, sometimes they do the captions in red…
I’ve always found it interesting that Closed Captions use lower case letters for things like sound effects and attributing dialogue, in contrast to the all-caps that the actual dialogue is actually in.
And then they use the little notes to clue you in that someone’s singing! 
ALL CAPS is just…not…right…
My anal-retentive mind just screeches when I see ALL CAPS. Very similar to nails on the chalkboard, you might say.
When I write notes I sometimes write in all caps. I do put larger caps at the begining of sentences. I admit the reason I do so is that my hand writing can be a bit sloppy, and all caps is less difficult to misunderstand.
S EE WHAT I MEAN? F OR WHAT IT’S WORTH, MY HS ENGLISH TEACHER LIKED IT TOO.
I read something along these lines, but the reason for all caps was that supposedly when the teletype was printing out the letters, it wasn’t always crystal clear, and capital letters are less prone to becoming illegible.
I read this in a book on programming or something quite some time ago.
THE ONLY LEGITIMATE REASON TO WRITE IN ALL CAPS IS IF YOU ARE OWEN MEANY.
Seriously, though, in addition to several very good reasons stated previously (readability, indicative of poor quality), I have an additional beef with all caps.
I’m a copyeditor. Which means that I deal with manuscripts that often have handwritten author insertions. I have yet to meet an author whose handwriting is perfectly legible, which means that I often must transcribe or otherwise clarify what the author has written so that the typesetter can read it. I hope there is a special place in Hell for authors who write their insertions in all caps, which means I must further typemark their chicken scratches. And as with all-caps typists, I’ve found that an author’s propensity for using all caps is inversely proportional to the quality of his* writing.
*So far I have found the use of all-caps handwriting to be a purely male phemonenon.
…when you put professional tools (i.e., the alphabet) in the hands of hapless amateurs. They don’t understand how the tools work, so they just do whatever they want.
I am a professional graphic designer, and part of that is knowing at least a minimum about typography. Believe it or not, typography is a very exact science, based on what the eye is able to best perceive. It may sound like I’m stating the obvious, but the alphabet is designed to be read. IOW, it looks the way it does because it evolved that way.
Furthermore, reading does not consist of looking at each individual letter. We actually read one word at a time. Our brain recognizes the word, perceives its meaning and moves to the next word. Our brains recognize words in their most basic, common, lower-case form. Deviations from that norm cause our brains to take more time to look at and understand the word. This explains the purpose of capital letters. Our brains know the purpose of capital letters - they start a new sentence, indicate a name or title, etc.
And this is the point where graphic design begins to come into play. Graphic design is about finding the optimum way to communicate a message visually. Any piece of written communication has elements that are meant to be emphasized. ALL CAPS is one way to do this, as is bolding or italicizing or underlining. This makes specific words stand out from the text.
HOWEVER, WHEN ALL TEXT HAS SPECIAL FORMATTING, THERE IS NO WAY FOR THE READER TO DETERMINE WHICH WORDS DESERVE SPECIAL ATTENTION.
In fact, broad-brush special formatting of large pieces of text actually takes away from your audience’s comprehension of your message because their brains spend time trying to figure out the reason for the special formatting. By the time they figure out that there IS no reason (other than the messenger thinking it’s “kewl”), most readers are no longer interested in the message.
[sub](Note to a certain Doper: Colorizing your entire post also does this.)[/sub]
So, in summation, yes, you are all perfectly justified in ignoring board-posts, e-mail messages and phone pole flyers that are in all caps. After all, if the messenger actually cared that much about their message, they’d BE more careful in creating it.
All right, King Charlemagne was very important in the developement of lower case letters:
http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/scripts/history5.htm
(When reading this, note that “minuscule” means lower case)
Now “Kid” Charlemagne creates a post that makes us all praise lower case letters.
What’s up, Kid?