>> ooops! there are times when i'm typing and just don't want to be
> bothered. informal emails often go out with a total lack of caps
> from me.
I suspect this comes from the large number of people who never
learned to type using the proper "touch typing" method.
I note that when I first worked for the railroad, most of the
typewriters (used primarily for preparing waybills) were all caps (no
lower case at all) requiring use of the shift key for only the most
obscure of the special characters. This was done because very few
clerks in freight offices ever had any formal typing training. (And I
was amazed to see how fast some two-finger typists were). Indeed, a
few months of typing on an all-cap typewriter managed to
significantly undo my typing skills. (But with some effort, I
regained the ability to properly use the shift key, most of the time.)
I suggest that "Mavis Bacon Teaches Typing" is an excellent program
that can help almost anyone learn to type using the correct technique.
I have to admit that over the many years of education, the one, best
class I ever had was high school "Typing 1" -- I was able to achieve
a typing speed that was as fast as I could think the words -- and it
has benefited me ever since.
>>
>> the 'net IS so much less formal (:-D) than standard written
> communications of yore.
>
Proper typing has no relation to formality or informality. It has a
lot to do with keyboard skills and readability for those who might
want to read your messages. While some allowance can be made for
those who haven't learned to type (see above), it's rather much to
expect a list of writers and publishers to not be annoyed by messages
that don't show some semblance of proper format. We can ignore the
typos and gaffes that occur with the informality of email
communication -- but a minimum of basic formatting makes messages
easier to read and understand. If your message isn't understood, they
why bother to send it? And, if your message is worth sending, then
why not make it easy to read?
In the era before computers, when handwritten notes were common, you
didn't see people dispense with common capitalization and punctuation
just because a message was informal. Only telegrams (prepared in all
caps) used truncated language and punctuation. But that was due to
economic incentives, since each letter used added to the cost.
============
Pete Masterson, Author of
Book Design and Production: A Guide for Authors and Publishers
Aeonix1@Mac.
Aeonix Publishing Group http://www.aeonix.
============
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