WHY DO ALL CAPS MAKE ME LOOK LIKE A MORON?

i have a feeling this “TURN IT OFF” picture thing is gonna get out of hand – any time anyone uses caps, even with good reason to, someone is gonna think they’re smooth and post that picture.

lets just clarify this one more time, shall we? all caps is okay to use in certain situations:
1. Yelling
ex: I said, SHUT UP ALREADY!!!
2. Emphasizing certain words
ex: I agree that it’s good for emphasizing a FEW words
3. Emotion
ex: WOOHOO I JUST WON THE LOTTERY!!! (i suppose this and yelling are interchangeable, but hey)

it is not acceptable to use as:
1. Entire sentences
ex: HEY THERE BOB HOW’S IT GOIN
2. Forum thread titles
ex: HELP I NEED SOME HELP WITH THIS
3. Random words in a sentence that should have no added emphasis
ex: hey THERE how are YOU doin today

also, I think we’ve established that alternating capitals and lowercase letters is really, really annoying.
1. Every other letter
ex: HeY tHeRe HoW’s It GoIn?
2. Title Case
ex: Hi Everybody I Just Signed Up And Have No Idea What I’m Doing Here

any questions, class?

I would rather not use 2 instead of to. It just messes the train of thought up, and plus, how hard is it to press one more key? The point is, some short hand words arn’t very useful. However, Im being a hipocrate right now, because I use g2g,brb, ect. But I dont use 2 instead of to. (execpt for g2g).

And so does posting uninteresting replies to numerous of threads in the ‘New? Start here!’ forum. Stop it, please?

Eh, c’mon now. Caps are annoying but may serve a purpose. Yelling is annoying, but may serve a purpose. Draw me up a stem and leaf chart and call me in the morning.

The whole point this topic is trying to prove is that caps never should / never needs to be on all the time.

Caps should be used for yelling and excitment only.

They shouldn’t be used to draw attention (to a topic for example), they shouldn’t be used to annoy someone, and they shouldn’t be used for no reason.

I host tournaments, for a league in Yahoo games (ill refrain from the shameless plug of the site). I use all caps in the games lobby, very often. Its required of hosts, so that tourney announcments stand out. Thats the only time I use them, and even then, I take off the caps to talk about mundane things like: what happened to me today, or bbq’n a cat for dinner.

As for people who do talk/post in all caps, or use inordinate amount of slang. I see no reason to take their computer away, auto-ignore, or call them a moron (not saying you did Jeff). It wouldnt hurt anyone, nor take time away from a persons massively busy schedule of replying to forums, to point out that its annoying, impolite, and just plain bad form.

Then…..

If they cant get the hint. Go ahead and ignore, throw em on the bbq with the cat, or call the Puter Police, to go round up their equipment.

Woof!

*Disclaimer*
No cats were harmed during the typing of this post (dinner isnt for a few hours).

*Disclaimer*
The author of this post does not suggest that any person bbq their cat for dinner, or even the neighbors. I dont care if it does keep you up all night howling.

Oh no, I read the whole thing, don’t simply think that I didn’t because I chose one section to comment about over another. It’s been overstated and I think that we all agree that yes, caps makes you look like a moron, yes it is annoying and yes, there are many reasons as to why one shouldn’t use caps. I simply chose to comment on one section that the people were ragging about rather than the others because they’re overstated and rather obvious, that and it pretty much sums up how I feel about caps in general. Yeah it’s annoying and serves little purpose when overused, but anything if overused serves little purpose.

Heh, I think I stayed pretty on topic compared to some of these others…

And of course, to address the other little annoyances in the typing world…

I don’t know why someone would bother typing in alternet caps, lower, caps again unless they’re in a typing class and they’re in grave need of a capital letter improvement drill. It takes a lot of time and it’s … retarded, for lack of a better word. Only prepubesant girls and boys on the dance squad type like that.

And all those little acronyms…gtg.brb.bbl. And going as far as w/e, nm,ttyl,w^ and all those…are reaching a new level of laziness. I really don’t know why it’s so much more difficult to type out the two extra letters in the word “you”.

When it comes down to it, if you wouldn’t write a paper in that manner for class, it makes you look like a moron. Not to say you need to be formal and all of that, and I’m not even a super stickler on punctuation and all that (if e.e. cummings can get away with it…) just trying to keep some level of sanity and salvage a bit of our language…

Please send all criticizm/hate mail to sami.sam@gmail.com