Capitalization

September 28, 2007 in writing | 5 comments

so a few friends have asked why i don’t use capitalization on this blog.

mostly it is an aesthetic choice…i just prefer the way lowercase letters look…especially “i”…why should it be capitalized?  it doesn’t make sense…i guess I just don’t feel that important that I should be capitalized.

also, and this is a bit renegade of me, but who made up these capitalization rules in the first place?  it seems a bit arbitrary to me.  i’ve never been the greatest fan of “official grammar” and “perfect sentence structure” in writing (which i suppose is obvious if you’ve been reading this blog).  i like to think that things can be beautiful and well written (and well spoken) without catering to the sometimes clausterphobic rules of “the man”

lastly, i like the more casual informal look that it gives to my (or anyone’s) writing…as if you are looking in on someone’s thoughts, or a private conversation, instead of something more formal and structured.

that said, again for largely personal reasons, i’ve decided to switch over and bow down to “the man”.  As of this post…and this sentence…all posts on 1979 Semi-Finalist will be done with proper capitalization.  As for proper grammar?  I can’t promise anything there, but I’ll do my best. 

5 comments

  1. shiv’s avatar

    shiv on September 30, 2007 at 1:37 am

    don’t bow down to the man! why won’t you continue to rock the lowercase? do it for all of us who refuse! (if it was good enough for e. e. cummings, it’s good enough for me.)

  2. 1979semifinalist’s avatar

    1979semifinalist on October 1, 2007 at 3:27 pm

    I know it’s terrible. But I’ve been blogging so much that the lowercase has become kind of a bad habit for the other stuff I have to do, like have a job in which capitalization is pretty much a necessity, and even in my own writing that I do on the side…I found myself spending a lot of time correcting myself…which is just wasted time. So I decided it’s in my own best interests…damn the man.

    Thanks for the support though. And thanks for reading! :)

  3. brian kelly hahn’s avatar

    brian kelly hahn on October 2, 2007 at 3:49 am

    i know just what you mean. i like my name in lowercase.

    brian kelly hahn is much better than Brian Hahn

  4. 1979semifinalist’s avatar

    1979semifinalist on October 2, 2007 at 2:00 pm

    Yeah, I really hated to make the compromise, but I found it really was bleeding over into some of my other work in a negative/time consuming way, so here I am, Kelly instead of the preferred kelly…

  5. shiv’s avatar

    shiv on October 3, 2007 at 2:14 am

    well my job requires me to capitalize incessantly but i say to hell with the man. i love the lack of caps, and i’ve trained myself to only capitalize for work. it’s quite a switch i’ve built.
    and don’t you thank me for reading, woman, i’m happy to b/c you are awesome.

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