lowercase vs. Uppercase.
why do i blog in lowercase? i’ve asked myself this of late. my friend megan does it too. my sister, on the other hand, writes with proper uppercase.
this post by marco got me reconsidering my lower(case) standards.
i’ve narrowed down a few justifications for my lowercase addiction:
- i used to use livejournal.
- i used to participate in online forums about computer games in which all members wrote in lowercase which i therefore adopted as cool and acceptable behavior.
- i am pretending to be hip. i.e. “Lowercase, graphical minimalism, novel use of punctuation, and rich color schemes are all fashion trends of the online world.”
- i prefer laziness in my personal typing life because i am under such strict guidelines in my professional/student typing life.
- it is a rebellion against years and years of mavis beacon tutelage and crappy intro to keyboarding classes.
however, i have realized, that amung that list, there is nothing really justifying my lowercase issue. i am, after all, a former english major, current journalism minor and copy editing freak. why do i skimp on this one thing?
Stay tuned.
i don’t capitalize because there’s no reason to. grammar, schmrammar. i was an english major for two years which means i have creative license. i remember reading that e.e. cummings & emily dickinson both used capitalization not as a grammatical custom, but as a means of emphasizing certain words & ideas. that makes sense to me.
i know what you’re thinking. “he put himself in the same category as e.e. & emily! he can’t do that!” but alas, i’m aware that not an ounce of the drivel i scribble is jaw-dropping, strawberry-in-summer sweet, amazingly life-altering poetry. i don’t think so highly of myself and neither should you.
also, the source css for my tumblr includes a “text-transform: lowercase” element because i like the way that it looks, having everything in lowercase. it’s an aesthetic choice that doesn’t compromise the functionality of language.
