Do you know how to capitalize?
yeah? do you know that in the complex linguistic context of casual conversation in specific circles of the internet, things like capitalization and punctuation are used differently to express different tones, inflections, and meanings, and that traditional capitalization in all contexts says a lot about the author and who they intend their audience to be?
for example:Â
-âi am madâ- neutral conversation, can be funny depending on the context
-âI Am Madâ- author is making a specific point or exaggeration, often in a humorous, self-aware way
-âI am mad.â - an inflection of formality usually interpreted as more standoffish and less approachable, slightly unfriendly if used in a casual millennial setting
in the context of this blog, iâm writing accessible science content to people my own age in the same social context of the internet, and i choose my inflection accordingly- just like i would talk to another person my age. this is indicated beforehand by the title of this blog being âbotanyshitpostsâ, with âshitpostingâ being a popular internet term to refer to memes, low-effort explanations, and easily accessible, modifiable, and approachable content.Â
remember that these inflections have reasons to arise! if youâre a millennial (like me) texting your friends over discord, then it becomes less efficient in a quickly moving group chat to use proper capitalization (one more button to hit, and every line?) and everyone has an understanding that thatâs that and nobody else in the chat cares about formalityâŠ.because youâre friends. this is a similar reason why other shorthand for common sayings and phrases have become common over the past two/three decades (beginning with stuff like âlolâ and developing more to include a lot of acronyms). all this has led to relaxed capitalization and shorthand being a sign of friendliness.Â
if you go to circles of the internet with people who might not have grown up talking frequently to others online, the context is much different, and is more inclined towards proper capitalization and such. similarly, when i- and others - write outside of online circles, weâre still educated human beings who write with proper capitalization, punctuation, and spelling, because we are fully aware of the complex societal nuances in different situations and are able to change how we speak to adhere to that. in fact, we are so acclimated to multiple online and offline cultures and relevancies that we actively choose how we talk!Â
in conclusion: this is actually a really interesting ask, because it shows that youâre coming from another part of the internet/a completely different context where, when looking at how i and other (educated, intelligent) people in my age group speak online, you completely miss the nuances and brush it off as something to be mocked, because in the circles youâre a part of varied capitalization is interpreted as a sign of incompetence. meanwhile, for much of the evolving internet, varied capitalization conveys meaning of tone and intent through a medium where verbal tone changes arenât applicable! it has itâs own meaning, and itâs a very interesting thing to watch and study from a scientific perspectiveâŠÂ thatâs modern linguistics and anthropology, bay bee!!Â
Hells yeah! The English language relies heavily on stressing and intonation to give shades of meaning to out words, like I think all languages do that but English really just grabs the ball and runs with it. We all know the example of âI did not tell her thatâ where you stress I, did not, tell, her and that in turn and completely change the meaning of the sentence.
And written English has always struggled with that, not so much in formal settings but when engaging in casual conversation it has always been the problem of âtext doesnât do tone of voiceâ. But as @botanyshitposts says holy shit weâve got a generation that has increasingly embraced short form text communication, not like lengthy letters of emails I mean instant messenger, and so weâve Solved The Problem.Â
Remember, until very recently very few messaging services supported any sort of text formatting so you couldnât even use itallics to convey stress, so different capitalisation took its place, as did asterisks (which, uh, everyone decided that *word* means bolded? really?). And when combined with forms of media where you can use both and all its gained further shades of meaning so while both âtheyâre just Like Thatâ and âtheyâre just like thatâ are emphasised I read them differently in my head.
