Training a Pet Peeve

This is to all of those people out there who choose to type in ALL UPPER CAPS. You know who you are. Maybe you think it helps you get your point across, like screaming it somehow helps in comprehension. Or maybe you're just really lazy and won't turn the caps lock button off. Perhaps you think it just looks pretty or that it matches your handwriting better, thus being a better representation of who you really are. Well, you're not fooling anyone.

You see, we know all about you. And it's not a two way street. What you don't know is that we [the people] in order to form a more perfect union have collectively chosen not to read what you write. Yes, you've read correctly. Despite your valiant attempts at gaining our attention, you've failed. Big time. Of course, there is occasional rebel in our group who thinks what you have to say IN ALL CAPS might be worth reading, but after one [two if you're lucky] lines of type, those idealistic notions of breaking away are quickly relieved.

The fact is, you are writing to a wide forum of people who are mostly literate. And, unfortunately for you, they've grown up reading mixed caps. That is to say, 99.9% of all non-headline media that a person reads is made up of either an initial capital letter, or a mixture of capital and lowercase letters with the capital always at the front of the word. It's easy for everyone to read. Letters are easily distinguished from one another, and words take on unique forms. We don't need to focus on phonics [what you may call FONIX] because our brains have been trained to treat certain shapes as specific words.

Case in point:

In publishing and graphic design, lorem ipsum[p][1][2] is the name given to commonly used placeholder text (filler text) to demonstrate the graphic elements of a document or visual presentation, such as font, typography, and layout. The lorem ipsum text, which is typically a non-sensical list of semi-Latin words, is a hacked version of a Latin text by Cicero, with words/letters omitted and others inserted, but not proper Latin (see below: History and discovery).

is far easier to read than:

IN PUBLISHING AND GRAPHIC DESIGN, LOREM IPSUM IS THE NAME GIVEN TO COMMONLY USED ELEMENTS OF A DOCUMENT OR VISUAL PRESENTATION, SUCH AS FONT, TYPOGRAPHY, AND LAYOUT. THE LOREM IPSUM TEXT, WHICH IS TYPICALLY A NON-SENSICAL LIST OF SEMI-LATIN WORDS, IS A HACKED VERSION OF LATIN TEXT BY CICERO, WITH WORDS/LETTER OMITTEND AND OTHERS INSERTED, BUT NOT PROPER LATIN (SEE BELOW: HISTORY AND DISCOVERY).

Did you just see that? I know you did. Don't deny it. You didn't finish even trying to read that second block of copy. Why is that I wonder?

I hope we've learned a valuable lesson here today Mr.-I-love-the-all-caps-treatment. I hope we can now go on to be a civilized nation [interwebz] of people who are both literate and capable of saying things without having to scream them or cry for attention. We can continue to be a polite, well rounded society of folks who have a proper understanding of conversation. Maybe, just maybe, we can move on to the second or third grade of interwebz communication. Congratulation grad.