All caps

Messages completely in capital letters are often equated on social media to shouting and other impolite or argumentative behaviors. This became a mainstream interpretation with the advent of networked computers, from the 1980s onward. However, a similar interpretation was already evidenced by written sources that predated the computing era, in some cases by at least a century, and the textual display of shouting or emphasis was still not a settled matter by 1984. The following sources may be relevant to the history of all caps: :* The 17 April 1856 edition of the Yorkville Enquirer (South Carolina) uses the expression "This time he shouted it out in capital letters." :* The 1880 book The Standard speaker and elocutionist has a section titled "SHOUTING STYLE", which states that "This will be seldom needed throughout an entire piece, but wherever the words imply calling, or commanding, it will be in keeping with the words to employ it. As examples note the following selections marked in CAPITAL letters as the appropriate place for shouting emphasis." A large number of literature examples are then given where all caps has been used to represent shouting. :* The 6 September 1958 edition of Bookseller: The Organ of the Book Trade describes writing in lower-case "rather than shouting with all caps. The effect is pleasing to anybody in a contemplative mood." :* A 2014 article on netiquette (online etiquette) in New Republic, titled "How Capital Letters Became Internet Code for Yelling", states that: ::* According to Professor Paul Luna (of the University of Reading's department of typography and graphic communication), all caps has been used "to convey grandeur, pomposity, or aesthetic seriousness for thousands of years", and for many years to express anger or shouting in print. Examples are cited such as pianist Philippa Schuyler's 1940s biography titled "Composition in Black and White", which used all caps to "yell", and Robert Moses, who in the 1970s used all caps to "convey rage" at a draft of a book. ::* Online newsgroups and bulletin board posts from around 1984 show that a user still needed to explain that "if it's in caps i'm trying to YELL", or that "Capitalizing whole words gives the impression that you're shouting". == Usage ==

Print media Before the development of lower-case letters in the 8th century, texts in the Latin alphabet were written in a single case, which is now considered to be capital letters. Text in all caps is not widely used in body copy. The main exception to this is the so-called fine print in legal documents. The Saanich dialect is written in all caps except for the suffix -s. Capital letters have been widely used in printed headlines from the early days of newspapers until the 1950s. In the 1990s, more than three-quarters of newspapers in the western world used lower-case letters in headline text. Discussion regarding the use of all caps for headlines centers on the greater emphasis offered by all caps versus the greater legibility offered by lower-case letters. Computing All caps typography was common on teletype machines, such as those used by police departments, news, and the United States' then-called Weather Bureau, as well as early computers, such as certain early Apple II models and the ZX81, which had a limited support for lower-case text. This changed as full support of ASCII became standard, allowing lower-case characters. Some Soviet computers, such as Radio-86RK, Vector-06C, Agat-7, use 7-bit character encoding called KOI-7N2, where capital Russian letters replace lower-case Latin letters in the ASCII table, so can display both alphabets, but all caps only. Mikrosha is switchable to KOI-7N1, in this mode, it can display both caps and lower-case, but in Russian only. Other Soviet computers, such as BK0010, MK 85, Corvette and Agat-9, use 8-bit encoding called KOI-8, they can display both Russian and Latin letters in caps and lower-case. Many, but not all, NES games use all caps because of tile graphics, where charset and tiles share the same ROM. Game designers often choose to have less characters in favor of more tiles. With the advent of the bulletin board system, or BBS, and later the Internet, typing messages in all caps commonly became closely identified with "shouting" or attention-seeking behavior, and may be considered rude. Its equivalence to shouting traces back to at least 1984 and before the Internet, back to printed typography usage of all capitals to mean shouting. Some aspects of Microsoft's Metro design language involve the use of all caps headings and titles. This has received particular attention when menu and ribbon titles appeared in all caps in Visual Studio 2012 and Office 2013, respectively. Critics have compared this to a computer program shouting at its user. Information technology journalist Lee Hutchinson described Microsoft's using the practice as "LITERALLY TERRIBLE ... [it] doesn't so much violate OS X's design conventions as it does take them out behind the shed, pour gasoline on them, and set them on fire." In programming, writing in all caps (possibly with underscores replacing spaces) is an identifier naming convention in many programming languages that symbolizes that the given identifier represents a constant. Surnames A practice exists (most commonly in Francophone countries) of distinguishing the surname from the rest of a personal name by stylizing the surname only in all caps. This practice is also common among Japanese, when names are spelled using Roman letters. Military communication In April 2013, the U.S. Navy moved away from an all caps-based messaging system, which was begun with 1850s-era teleprinters that had only uppercase letters. Contract law An antiquated practice that still remains in use, especially by older American lawyers who grew up before the arrival of computers, is to use all caps text for text that is legally required to be emphasised and clearly readable. The practice dates to the period of typewriters, which generally did not offer bold text, small capitals, or the opportunity to add marginal notes emphasising key points. Legal writing expert Bryan A. Garner has described the practice as "ghastly". A 2020 study found that all caps in legal texts is ineffective and is, in fact, harmful to older readers. In 2002, a US court spoke out against the practice, ruling that simply making text all-capitals has no bearing on whether it is clear and easily readable: Pop culture Certain musicians—such as Marina, Finneas, who are both known mononymously, and MF Doom—as well as some bands such as Haim, Blackpink and Kiss—have their names stylised in all caps. Additionally, it is common for bands with vowelless names (a process colourfully known as "disemvoweling") to use all caps, with prominent examples including STRFKR, MSTRKRFT, PWR BTTM, SBTRKT, JPNSGRLS (now known as Hotel Mira), BLK JKS, MNDR, and DWNTWN. It has also become common for albums and their track listings to be stylised in all caps, particularly in hip hop. == Readability ==

in Ireland. The eclipsis of P to bP uses lower case in an otherwise all caps text. Miles Tinker, renowned for his landmark work, Legibility of Print, performed scientific studies on the legibility and readability of all-capital print. His findings were as follows: According to Tinker, "As early as 1914, Starch reported that material set in Roman lower case was read somewhat faster than similar material printed in all capitals." Another study in 1928 showed that "all-capital text was read 11.8 percent slower than lower case, or approximately 38 words per minute slower", and that "nine-tenths of adult readers consider lower case more legible than all capitals". A 1955 study by Miles Tinker showed that "all-capital text retarded speed of reading from 9.5 to 19.0 percent for the 5 and 10-minute time limits, and 13.9 percent for the whole 20-minute period". Tinker concluded that, "Obviously, all-capital printing slows reading to a marked degree in comparison with Roman lower case." His conclusions, based on scientific testing in 1982–1990, are: "Headlines set in capital letters are significantly less legible than those set in lower case." John Ryder, in the Case for Legibility, stated that "Printing with capital letters can be done sufficiently well to arouse interest and, with short lines, reading at a slowed speed is possible – but in principle too many factors of low legibility are involved." Other critics are of the opinion that all caps letters in text are often "too tightly packed against each other". == See also ==