7 ms·

A very adept writer.

by mac-attack 10mo ago

npinsker 10mo ago
Yes, one of the best pieces I've ever read posted here.
yzydserd 10mo ago
Agreed. I just hope they repair their Shift keys soon.
- zdc1 10mo ago
  I don't know the age of the author, but interestingly, Gen-Z doesn't seem to use that key
  - nojs 10mo ago
    It’s ironic because you have to go to additional effort to turn autocorrect off, which contradicts the “i dont even care” effect they’re going for
    - popularrecluse 10mo ago
      It's a lot less effort than changing every nth word because of an aggressive autocorrect.
  - Esophagus4 10mo ago
    Baby boomers have used up all the capital letters on Yelp reviews and Facebook rants, unfortunately, and have left none for future generations.
    - esafak 10mo ago
      https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/clinton-deploys-vowels.html https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/clinton-deploys-v...
  - impure-aqua 10mo ago
    This is not really anything new, back in AIM and SMS messaging days, people would type "wuu2" or "whats up" to a friend, but to express the same idea in an email, you would probably be sending some variant of "What are you up to?" There is massively different subtext between the two. Autocapitalization and autocorrect represents a limit on the subtextual bandwidth you can communicate along with a message. Restrictions on subtextual bandwith are not ideal when your generation relies on text-based communication for evermore intimate interactions - that "whats up" message might be the start of you asking someone out on a date, I don't want it formatted the same way as a message I would send my boss.
  - lordnacho 10mo ago
    I've always wondered what the point of capital letters even is? It doesn't seem to add anything worthwhile to the language. You need to learn 26 extra shapes, and then some arbitrary rules for when to use the majuscule. But if you never heard of capital letters, nobody will be confused by what you wrote.
    - nkrisc 10mo ago
      They make scanning and reading text easier since they make jumping to the end/start of sentences easier. When you read your eyes are constantly jumping ahead and even backwards. The capital letters help you land quickly back at significant positions in the text since they are associated with boundaries in logical clauses.
      - lordnacho 10mo ago
        If that were the point, why does English capitalize proper nouns? That would seem to complicate finding the start of a sentence. Besides, you have periods, exclamation points, and question marks at the ends of sentences anyway. In German even ordinary nouns are capitalized, making it even less easy to find the capital at the start of a sentence.
        machomaster 10mo ago
        1. Dots are tiny and are hard to see. A capital letter is a more visible indicator of the start of the sentence. 2. English barely uses any punctuation (vs. Russian) therefore making adherence to readability rules even more important. Paragraphs are also nicer to read vs. trying to read a wall of text.
        nkrisc 10mo ago
        Because there is no perfect writing system and proper nouns are also significant and thus it’s a balance of the two needs.
- padolsey 10mo ago
  I think it's become a bit of a cliche/clique'y thing amongst a certain population. I don't know its origins (tumblr emo crowd??) but I first encountered it in Silicon Valley. The Collison brothers used to love doing it, as did Altman. I feel it projects a kind of stream-of-thought with an aloofness, like "i dont care enough for correct form. language bends to my unique thoughts. read this if you like, i dont care lol". All-lowercase comes accross as the text equivalent of a hoodie and jeans: comfortable, a bit defensive against being seen as trying too hard, and now so common it barely reads as rebellion.
  - saaaaaam 10mo ago
    As I understand it the root was people using the iPhone with autocorrect turned off. That’s how someone from the tumblr emo crowd (where it was definitely prevalent!) explained it to me, and the reason was because there was a lot of culture specific terminology used (including deliberate misspellings of words) that was difficult if autocorrect was switched on. By extension you can see how that could also apply to tech.
  - 6581 10mo ago
    > I don't know its origins (tumblr emo crowd??) You're almost a century off :) https://www.bauhaus-bookshelf.org/bauhaus_writing_in_small_letters_lower_case_only.html https://www.bauhaus-bookshelf.org/bauhaus_writing_in_small_l...

A very adept writer.

npinsker 10mo ago

Yes, one of the best pieces I've ever read posted here.

yzydserd 10mo ago

Agreed. I just hope they repair their Shift keys soon.

zdc1 10mo ago
I don't know the age of the author, but interestingly, Gen-Z doesn't seem to use that key
- nojs 10mo ago
  It’s ironic because you have to go to additional effort to turn autocorrect off, which contradicts the “i dont even care” effect they’re going for
  - popularrecluse 10mo ago
    It's a lot less effort than changing every nth word because of an aggressive autocorrect.
- Esophagus4 10mo ago
  Baby boomers have used up all the capital letters on Yelp reviews and Facebook rants, unfortunately, and have left none for future generations.
  - esafak 10mo ago
    https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/clinton-deploys-vowels.html https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/clinton-deploys-v...
- impure-aqua 10mo ago
  This is not really anything new, back in AIM and SMS messaging days, people would type "wuu2" or "whats up" to a friend, but to express the same idea in an email, you would probably be sending some variant of "What are you up to?" There is massively different subtext between the two. Autocapitalization and autocorrect represents a limit on the subtextual bandwidth you can communicate along with a message. Restrictions on subtextual bandwith are not ideal when your generation relies on text-based communication for evermore intimate interactions - that "whats up" message might be the start of you asking someone out on a date, I don't want it formatted the same way as a message I would send my boss.
- lordnacho 10mo ago
  I've always wondered what the point of capital letters even is? It doesn't seem to add anything worthwhile to the language. You need to learn 26 extra shapes, and then some arbitrary rules for when to use the majuscule. But if you never heard of capital letters, nobody will be confused by what you wrote.
  - nkrisc 10mo ago
    They make scanning and reading text easier since they make jumping to the end/start of sentences easier. When you read your eyes are constantly jumping ahead and even backwards. The capital letters help you land quickly back at significant positions in the text since they are associated with boundaries in logical clauses.
    - lordnacho 10mo ago
      If that were the point, why does English capitalize proper nouns? That would seem to complicate finding the start of a sentence. Besides, you have periods, exclamation points, and question marks at the ends of sentences anyway. In German even ordinary nouns are capitalized, making it even less easy to find the capital at the start of a sentence.
      - machomaster 10mo ago
        1. Dots are tiny and are hard to see. A capital letter is a more visible indicator of the start of the sentence. 2. English barely uses any punctuation (vs. Russian) therefore making adherence to readability rules even more important. Paragraphs are also nicer to read vs. trying to read a wall of text.
      - nkrisc 10mo ago
        Because there is no perfect writing system and proper nouns are also significant and thus it’s a balance of the two needs.
padolsey 10mo ago
I think it's become a bit of a cliche/clique'y thing amongst a certain population. I don't know its origins (tumblr emo crowd??) but I first encountered it in Silicon Valley. The Collison brothers used to love doing it, as did Altman. I feel it projects a kind of stream-of-thought with an aloofness, like "i dont care enough for correct form. language bends to my unique thoughts. read this if you like, i dont care lol". All-lowercase comes accross as the text equivalent of a hoodie and jeans: comfortable, a bit defensive against being seen as trying too hard, and now so common it barely reads as rebellion.
- saaaaaam 10mo ago
  As I understand it the root was people using the iPhone with autocorrect turned off. That’s how someone from the tumblr emo crowd (where it was definitely prevalent!) explained it to me, and the reason was because there was a lot of culture specific terminology used (including deliberate misspellings of words) that was difficult if autocorrect was switched on. By extension you can see how that could also apply to tech.
- 6581 10mo ago
  > I don't know its origins (tumblr emo crowd??) You're almost a century off :) https://www.bauhaus-bookshelf.org/bauhaus_writing_in_small_letters_lower_case_only.html https://www.bauhaus-bookshelf.org/bauhaus_writing_in_small_l...