this is a lowercase title for my blog entry
February 25th, 2004
I’m a fan of all things lowercase.
People don’t really like to talk about stuff like that because if you’ve got them cornered somewhere and you start asking them their feelings on lowercase versus uppercase, they just look at you like you’re insane. I mean, why the hell do you want to know this answer? What hidden agenda do you have? Are you feeding their lowercase/uppercase preferences to some hidden governmental agency who will use it to arrest them and their loved ones?
Some people wonder these exact things.
I like lowercase words and phrases for many reasons. First and foremost, it’s rebellious. If you don’t capitalize your sentences, man are you spitting a big ‘ol loogie in the face of the establishment. Not to mention, it throws people off. Let’s look at an example…
You see: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
You think: Wow. There’s this quick brown fox and he’s so athletic, look’t this little critter, jumping over that big fat lazy dog. God, talk about gluttony.
Okay. Now, let’s look at the lowercase version.
You see: the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
You think: Johnny, the quick brown fox? My mother’s ex-husband the ex-con and his buddies who were drinking beer and the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog? Who the hell is with this quick brown fox? Is this irony? Is it a dead, stuffed fox? What am I missing from this story? Damn you, whoever you are who put this unfinished sentence out there for me to read! My head hurts, goddammit! Where’s my migraine medication. Uugggh. The pain. Where’s the doctor’s emergency phone number, I gotta get some of that Imitrex stuff…
…lowercase sentences and words are spontaneous and suspicious and extremely wiley while also being a way to communicate a lack of respect for any order in society… And don’t get me started on punctuation or lacks of commas. That’s just blasphemous.
…so in conclusion — i am a big fan of all things lowercase… and you can’t stop me.
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Next week — cereal or oatmeal? You’d be surprised just how people vote.
I like lowercase because it’s freedom from shift key. I like lowercase because it’s lower, where I belong
Comment by kenny — February 25, 2004 @ 9:53 pm
Damnit! This is the third time I’ve tried to enter a comment and it keeps doing something wonky when I hit backspace….&(&()!!
Anyhoo…I was saying, pauly, that punctuation can mean so much. For instance consider the following: I have a question mark.
WITH our friend the comma, this sentence means that I have a question and I’m talking to you, Mark. (I have a question, Mark.)
WITHOUT our friend the comma, this sentence summons images of me as the guest star on Sesame Street holding up a GIANT cardboard question mark. Preferably with baby elmo…I love him.
Of course we also have upper/lowercase issues at play in this example. Perhaps it was too advanced.
That’s all.
Comment by lori — February 25, 2004 @ 10:20 pm
You have a, good, point, there, my friend.
Comment by Pauly D — February 25, 2004 @ 10:46 pm
yeah, i’m thinking about it some more and i’ve settled on a pro-punctuation and anti-case stance.
we really should do all we can to end case-ism. viva la revolution!!
Comment by lori — February 25, 2004 @ 11:04 pm
My personal favorite for titles is drop case. That’s where only the first word is capitalized and everything else is lower case.
For text, I just can’t leave that shift key alone. I’ve tried. Oh, how I’ve tried! For me, grammar and spelling and complete sentenses are optional.
The small caps feature in Microsoft Word is fun because everything is all caps, but some letters can be more capital than others.
This comment likely contains text that does not adhere to common spelling and gramatical norms. These errors are not intentional, and I apologize for any difficulty they cause you in understanding my meager and tentative efforts to communicate.
Comment by Reluctant Writer — February 25, 2004 @ 11:12 pm
i love lowercase. i’m all lowercase, all the time. because i never get capitalization, grammar or spelling right, i just abandon them all. plus, i have an aversion to any caps BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE MY PARENTS WHO DO THIS IN EMAILS OR IM’S.
Comment by janelle — February 27, 2004 @ 7:40 am
My signature, for a while, was lower case because I thought it looked cool, and it did. My sister, the “psychologist”, decided I was doing that because I felt unworthy and inferior. Unworthy of capital letters? Someone needs a doctor and it ain’t me, Babe.
Comment by nic — July 29, 2005 @ 10:18 am