If the author otherwise (that is, first word capitalization issue aside) writes grammatically better than >99% of other internet writers, I submit that you can grant them this one shred of self-expressive style. Goes pretty well with the terminal user theme, to boot.
It's pretty clear she pays mind to grammar and cares about its proper usage more than most.
I did not say anything about grammar or even punctuation (in general). I have voiced a specific concern of a complete disregard of a proper capitalization. If you call it a "self-expressive style", well, it is your opinion and, of course, you are as entitled to one as everyone else. However, I highly doubt that most people would agree with your characterization of this as a "style". I welcome diversity of self-expression, but I would expect it to be in the form of writing itself (content and/or writing style) and/or visual aids (images), but not in ignoring expected traditional punctuation. BTW, the issue here includes lack of capitalization not only for the first word in a sentence, but also for the pronoun "I".
Well, I find it to pretty obviously be a self-expressive style, given the rest of its "form of writing itself (content and/or writing style) and/or visual aids (images)."
I could be wrong. Oh, well.
You might not have brought them up, but I largely (if not only ever) make the criticism regarding capitalization within contexts concerning grammar/punctuation or conveyance. And, given everything else in the article, I think it conveys pretty all right :)
I was not providing an argument, I was attempting to save time by rebutting the argument I thought you would make.
Why do you find this trend "ridiculous" and "disturbing"? Deeper in this thread you state this is somehow worse UX, and makes the text less readable. I... don't see how it's any less readable, could you elaborate?
I had thought you might say that this style is distracting, because it is so unusual you're involuntarily pulled from the content and made to focus on the form. I was trying to say, this effect is real, but it is at worst a temporary one. As you note this is a real trend and I expect soon we'll all be used to it. I'm already pretty used to it.
It's also a little ironic that you're rebelling against a new capitalization scheme but you're happy to use "BTW". Can you find a dictionary from 10 years ago which includes "BTW"? You're clearly okay with some form of language evolution, why draw the line here?
> Deeper in this thread you state this is somehow worse UX, and makes the text less readable. I... don't see how it's any less readable, could you elaborate?
Sure. I argue that this "style" provides poor UX due to decreased readability. Why decreased readability? Well ... Since late Middle Ages (maybe even earlier), people have realized that it is much easier to visually distinguish and consume concepts (in the form of sentences and paragraphs) when they are marked by specially formed characters (capital letters for sentences and initials aka drop caps for paragraphs and chapters). The following link points to the image (as an example) of an illuminated Psalter manuscript from Southern Germany circa 1240-1260: https://www.abebooks.com/images/medieval-manuscripts/german-.... You see what I mean, don't you? Read on ...
> ... this is a real trend and I expect soon we'll all be used to it.
I strongly disagree - there is no chance we all get used to it. With 99.(9)% of all text in the world using traditional capitalization rules / approach, it is practically infeasible that we all somehow get used to an extremely tiny subset of visual styles that make no sense to our brain. Historically, psychologically and, more importantly, physiologically, humans are wired for chunking information for easier digestion and anything that obstructs that is doomed to fail. Here is a relevant UX-focused article on the subject: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/chunking.
> It's also a little ironic that you're rebelling against a new capitalization scheme but you're happy to use "BTW" ... You're clearly okay with some form of language evolution, why draw the line here?
I draw the line between using a slang abbreviation widely prevalent on the Internet - essentially a de facto standard abbreviation for informal communication (which my brief comment on Hacker News certainly is) - and using an extremely unusual, to put it politely, text capitalization scheme for a long (and much more formal than my comment) blog post.
If the author otherwise (that is, first word capitalization issue aside) writes grammatically better than >99% of other internet writers, I submit that you can grant them this one shred of self-expressive style. Goes pretty well with the terminal user theme, to boot.
It's pretty clear she pays mind to grammar and cares about its proper usage more than most.
I did not say anything about grammar or even punctuation (in general). I have voiced a specific concern of a complete disregard of a proper capitalization. If you call it a "self-expressive style", well, it is your opinion and, of course, you are as entitled to one as everyone else. However, I highly doubt that most people would agree with your characterization of this as a "style". I welcome diversity of self-expression, but I would expect it to be in the form of writing itself (content and/or writing style) and/or visual aids (images), but not in ignoring expected traditional punctuation. BTW, the issue here includes lack of capitalization not only for the first word in a sentence, but also for the pronoun "I".
Well, I find it to pretty obviously be a self-expressive style, given the rest of its "form of writing itself (content and/or writing style) and/or visual aids (images)."
I could be wrong. Oh, well.
You might not have brought them up, but I largely (if not only ever) make the criticism regarding capitalization within contexts concerning grammar/punctuation or conveyance. And, given everything else in the article, I think it conveys pretty all right :)
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> If this is your argument
I was not providing an argument, I was attempting to save time by rebutting the argument I thought you would make.
Why do you find this trend "ridiculous" and "disturbing"? Deeper in this thread you state this is somehow worse UX, and makes the text less readable. I... don't see how it's any less readable, could you elaborate?
I had thought you might say that this style is distracting, because it is so unusual you're involuntarily pulled from the content and made to focus on the form. I was trying to say, this effect is real, but it is at worst a temporary one. As you note this is a real trend and I expect soon we'll all be used to it. I'm already pretty used to it.
It's also a little ironic that you're rebelling against a new capitalization scheme but you're happy to use "BTW". Can you find a dictionary from 10 years ago which includes "BTW"? You're clearly okay with some form of language evolution, why draw the line here?
> Deeper in this thread you state this is somehow worse UX, and makes the text less readable. I... don't see how it's any less readable, could you elaborate?
Sure. I argue that this "style" provides poor UX due to decreased readability. Why decreased readability? Well ... Since late Middle Ages (maybe even earlier), people have realized that it is much easier to visually distinguish and consume concepts (in the form of sentences and paragraphs) when they are marked by specially formed characters (capital letters for sentences and initials aka drop caps for paragraphs and chapters). The following link points to the image (as an example) of an illuminated Psalter manuscript from Southern Germany circa 1240-1260: https://www.abebooks.com/images/medieval-manuscripts/german-.... You see what I mean, don't you? Read on ...
> ... this is a real trend and I expect soon we'll all be used to it.
I strongly disagree - there is no chance we all get used to it. With 99.(9)% of all text in the world using traditional capitalization rules / approach, it is practically infeasible that we all somehow get used to an extremely tiny subset of visual styles that make no sense to our brain. Historically, psychologically and, more importantly, physiologically, humans are wired for chunking information for easier digestion and anything that obstructs that is doomed to fail. Here is a relevant UX-focused article on the subject: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/chunking.
> It's also a little ironic that you're rebelling against a new capitalization scheme but you're happy to use "BTW" ... You're clearly okay with some form of language evolution, why draw the line here?
I draw the line between using a slang abbreviation widely prevalent on the Internet - essentially a de facto standard abbreviation for informal communication (which my brief comment on Hacker News certainly is) - and using an extremely unusual, to put it politely, text capitalization scheme for a long (and much more formal than my comment) blog post.