I’ve noticed that it’s been a trend for quite some time to form complete sentences while not capitalizing letters in their correct places. This just personally annoys be a bit (yeah, yeah, grammar police, I know) and I can’t figure out why people do this.
It’s literally just about not caring enough to put mental effort into it. The words are the same, so it doesn’t really matter. It’s not out of malice.
I generally try to capitalise properly (though my phone is sorting it out now), but sometimes on desktop I just don’t care, it doesn’t affect me in any way. There’s so much else to care about that it’s just not worth the mental effort.
Ideally it’s just a habit you don’t have to think about, but not everyone has developed that habit.
i can tell you three reasons why i do it:
- i tend to type in quite a formal register, so it makes my comments seem less serious. it’s the same reason why i try to avoid full stops; and overuse semicolons, dashes, and paragraphs wherever possible
- there’s no semantic meaning to capitals in english (excluding acronyms and rare cases), so unless it’s a title or something i want to look pretty then why bother
- it’s easier to type; at least on a computer
i used to be quite stringent and use capitals in accordance with formal style guides (i was one of those people that correctly capitalised McDonald’s), then one day i just thought “fuck it, why” and stopped
I think that comes from a combination of not caring enough and stupid keyboards that don’t support good writing well.
im 46 and have had extremely terrible handwriting since grade school. some of that is do to adhd and having had my pinky finger of dominant hand broken. cursive writing was always difficult for me to write. as i got into high school i developed an all caps form of writing that my teachers accepted. now almost 30 years after graduating high school i still write in that same style. that coupled with 99% written words online, whether it be social media comments or emails, i do not use capital letters unless it is something that i want to bring attention to.