Comment by neilc
17 years ago
Absolutely. Personally, I think there is something mildly offensive about sending out a company-wide email announcing layoffs without bothering to capitalize your sentences. Apparently this is standard practice for Jerry Yang, though.
Yeah I agree - I see emails without capitals all the time, but often these are brief and it indicates the author wanted to respond quickly and succinctly...
When you're announcing layoffs it looks like you just did it on a whim, or with a lack of forethought.
I know this is not true at all, and probably very harsh - I'm sure that is not the intent at all... but these things show sensitivity.
What you have to understand, and is pointed out very briefly in the TC article, is that EVERY email from Jerry is lowercase. I can see how some people think this is offensive, but honestly, they lack the context of every other email he's ever sent. I think Yahoos would be more worried if he started using capitals honestly.
Note the use of the semi-colon in paragraph #2. I don't know anyone who uses the semi-colon in that capacity in off-the-cuff prose. The decision to stick it in lower-caps was presumably a conscious decision.