this fellow blogger’s rant caught my eye, in regards to the use of all lowercase in posts (which i obviously favor). some people love to harp on this, and i’ve never really understood why; i personally just like how it looks.
‘Be kind to your reader. Capitalization and punctuation are the easiest ways to indicate exactly what you’re trying to say. It’s time for a little tough love, people: Anyone who types in all lowercase needs to be taken out back and beaten. You are not e.e. cummings; you are not being “artistic.” You’re just too lazy to hit the shift key. If you can’t be bothered with the extra keystroke, I can’t be bothered to read your site. Don’t turn off readers before they even get to your words. (A refusal to capitalize is just one grammar horror that can be spotted at first glance. I can also spot an overuse of the ellipsis at 50 paces. There are two reasons to use an ellipsis (and neither one is because you don’t want to write a transition): Use an ellipsis to indicate words omitted from a direct quote or to trail off intriguingly. If neither of these are your intention, try a period. Dot. Full stop. Terminal punctuation can be your friend.)
Both the agony and the ecstasy of blogging is the ability to publish your words so easily; one might even say at the push of a button. This ease-of-use, however, seems to be accompanied by lack-of-use; our internal editors appear to be on eternal vacation when it comes to the internet. “It’s just an e-mail” or “It’s just a blog” are no excuses for rushed thinking (or even rushed typing). The world can wait a few more minutes. Sit back for a second. Compose your thoughts. Then release to the world your 800-word treatise on why Kill Bill: Vol. 2 is the greatest movie ever made.
Taking time before you write is just one step in the process of the well-written blog. Read over your posts before you publish them; read them over after you’ve published them. Personally, I always find mistakes after I hit the publish button. (It’s a curse.) But if you find the mistakes first, you can avoid that annoying e-mail from the grammar police: “Dear Blogger: You suck. In your post ‘Why Barbie Is Bad,’ you incorrectly used ‘it’s’ when you should have used ‘its.’ I’m just telling you this for your own good. Love, analgrammarfreak.com.” And if you think people don’t write these messages, you are sadly misguided. (Okay, maybe I just write write these messages.)’
while i share her loathing of bad grammar (and i genuinely love to play editor), the vigor which she pursues the issue seems rather out of place here in the trackless wastes of online journal land. my blog (along with hundreds of thousands of others like mine) is here for me, a handful of friends, and whatever anonymous surfer who might pass by. sure, if you’ve got a popular blog (of which there are many), and you believe that your target audience prefers capitalization, then by all means, give the people what they want. or tell them to go fuck themselves; whichever.
i think her energy would be better spent focusing on her own work, and the work of others who come to her for advice. she thinks we should worry about the online ‘grammar police’? please; how empty and pathetic does your life have to be before you start distributing this sort of unsolicited advice to complete strangers? this is blogger, not an english class, for pete’s sake – we come here to relax, not to be lectured to. her rant to the online journal community is the equivalent of sitting in traffic and screaming at other drivers about their driving habits; even if one of them hears you, they’re not going to care.
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