Fellow Netizens: When a person posts on internet IN ALL CAPS, DO YOU PERCEIVE THEY ARE SHOUTING?

Question

Some chat room moderators make it clear to not type in all caps as other participants perceive it as shouting.

How about email?

When you get an email in all caps, do you perceive it as shouting? Or just a lazy typist who won't take the time to shift the case key as appropriate?

How do you FEEL when someone types a message to you in all caps? Or at least, what is your first impression before you are able to fully digest what they are saying?

By the same token, when someone types a message to you over internet and they include zero capitalization, zero to little punctuation, and everything is all lower case -- do you feel slighted in some way? Like maybe you are so unimportant to that person that they couldn't take an extra half-second to correctly capitalize your name, the beginning of a sentence, proper nouns, etc?

Or is the standard now that no-one knows how to type or punctuate correctly so if you actually DO take the time to do these things, YOU'RE JUST WEIRD, MAN!

I distinquish between messages typed on a regular, full function keyboard and those composed over smaller devices like a cell phones, Blackberroes, enhanced pagers, etc. If the keypad is so small, or if significant extra strokes beyond just 1 are required in order to generate an upper case letter or a shift back to a lower case letter, then at least in my book, that person has a "pass" with regard to generating less than correctly punctuated messages. Oftentimes, the message is systemically limited in terms of total number of characters one can generate over a single transmission, thereby necessitating abbreviations and acronyms like OMG! and LMAO! I'm not speaking to those situations.

I am speaking to lazy typists on full function keyboards who think it's just "cooler" to omit punctuation and proper capitalization because that's what supposedly "really hip" Netizens do now. I personally have much experience in business communications and I disagree that punctuation is irrelevant

I do want to acknowledge an important point made by one responder, and that many consider running spell check to be a minimum courtesy and that there is no excuse for not doing it.

I will agree but with the caveat that not all spell checker programs are the same. I asked a related question over Yahoo! Answers regarding the accuracy of the spell checker program here. The general concensus was that yes -- the spell checker program on Yahoo! Answers needed improvement as many mispelled words were not caught. A further worthwhile observation was that, for longer postings, the spell checker takes an exorbitantly long time such that the Asker may have less incentive to be 100% correct in their spelling. FYI.

As for the comment on "Punctuation Nazis"...HA! Fun term! I've never heard it called that. I may use that, if that's O.K.? I guess every English teacher I ever had could be called a "Punctuation Nazi", right? "Achtung Froeline Landers! Vee like ze vay you dot dem i's!"

Answer 1

Yes, having worked in a Legal Office for many years, I usually perceive things that are written in ALL CAPS to be shouting at me. And people that can't use the shift key to capitalize the letters to make a sentence correct, are just being too lazy to care what form in which they send me a message. I really do not like it when people run sentences all of theirs together, with no punctuation whatsoever. Why bother sending me anything if you aren't going to have any pride in what you are sending? I guess perhaps I am just too particular about the way email and other correspondence is sent to me. One of my worst pet peeves is lazy people who refuse to use spell check. There is absolutely no excuse for not using spell check and people that send me emails and correspondence without proofing their correspondence irritates me because I think of them as being ignorant or lazy, whether they are or not. If people are in such a big hurry, then just don't bother sending me an email...simply pick up the telephone and tell me what it is that you want to say. I just like things done correctly.

And the way people send me email or correspondence tells me just how they feel about me. I would rather not receive an
email if people do not care enough to write something in its correct form with correct capitalization, punctuation or not
bothering to check their spelling!

Okay, I need to put an addendum here. When a person tends
to write a long email, sometimes it takes the spell checker an indefinite amount of time or it simply will not complete the function. Those two excuses are reasonable, but I still try to catch my mistakes and I'm not a "Nazi Punctuation" person. Unless someone posts an exceptionally stupid answer, I am normally not rude and I don't insult them by correcting their grammar or punctuation. It really isn't necessary unless you type a lot of legal documents like I have done for so many years in the past. It gets to be a habit or your boss tells you all about you NOT having used the spell checker. On legal docs, spell checking is a must, but it is usually done on a high dollar computer and many lawyers are willing to spend those big bucks so their documents don't have mistakes in them. It's just the way I was trained in college and in the working world.
Everyone has their pet peeves though.

Answer 2

I agree. I have actually seen resumes typed in all caps! It looks so unprofessional and lazy. I also hate reading emails with no punctuation. My mother was an English teacher and using periods and capital letters when proper is second nature to me, not an extra effort. I wish more people could be the same way.

Answer 3

I always read all caps as obnoxious shouting, except in appropriate cases (like when the person is actually meaning to shout just for a short sentence or something. Too long and it gets annoying).
I don't mind if someone doesn't bother capitalising though. Grammar/punctuation nazis piss me off. As long as I can get what their saying and it's not all in giant letters that hurt my eyes (caps), it's cool.
It's weird, but I sometimes like when people don't bother with caps. It sort of makes things seem more casual and friendly.

Answer 4

Yes, it's commonly accepted that all caps is done for emphasis and an extended passage of all caps is like shouting. I sometimes receive e-mails where a person is responding to a previous e-mail and uses caps to set his/her comments out from the other text, but even in this situation I feel a little uncomfortable when I read the all caps.

Answer 5

Yes I feel that way. It is just basic manners not to type in all caps. And if you are so lazy that you can't hit the shift key, you need to get off your duff and go work out or something instead of having your fat tail plopped in front of the computer all day. I don't talk to people on the internet that can't give me the common respect to use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling. Screw 'em. They are totally ingnorant.

Answer 6

Messages in caps are used often by the transportation industry... to transmit short and essential only information.
I preceive messages in caps as loud and rude. The same goes for messages written all in lower case - soft and sneaky.

Answer 7

e-political correctness gone mad. i'd politely ask the individual why they were typing in CAPS, but i can see why its been labeled as 'rude' in the online chat world.

what if i had some kind of character regonition/character selection disorder whereby I typed LiKe ThIs , WoUlD tHaT bE RuDe ? i'd love it if there are people who are allergic to reading/writing in smallcase, that would be quite amusing. " arrgh its smallcase , get it off my screen, get it off - get it off get it off " haha :D .

but yeah, all it takes is a gentle tap of the 'caps lock' key - it wouldn't require surplus amounts of your energy to do that, and continue typing w/e you wanted.

I came here to more or less defend CAPS TYPING, but i think its pointless and irritating and theres no need for it.

Answer 8

I'm more forgiving of text messages, but prefer them to be in lower case. Caps. do appear rude and loud. Unless of course they're used for EMPHASIS.

Answer 9

I'm gonna go with your last point: that no-one knows how to type or punctuate correctly.

Answer 10

I thought caps were made for bottles, did I just bottle that? I was shouting it