SHOUTING; emphasis?

[Dave Wilton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of RonButters at AOL.COM
> Sent: Sunday, September 08, 2002 1:14 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: SHOUTING; emphasis?
>
> It has always seemed to me more than a little weird to
> describe utterances printed in caps as "shouting," since
> "shouting" is by definition aural and e-mail is visual.
> (My e-mail reader does not speak caps any more loudly
> than it does lower-case utterances.) The idea that
> caps = "shouting" is something that somebody made
> up within the last dozen years, right? And isn't it a
> "rule" that is somewhat fading from the scene?

Yes, it's a recent convention, but that's because it is an *Internet*
convention. One can hardly expect an Internet convention to be much older.
I've found Usenet messages discussing the ALL CAPS = shouting practice back
to 1990, but it could be somewhat older.

And as far as I know, it is not a fading convention. Although the increase
in HTML email has given people new options, like italics and different
fonts, the convention will likely remain alive and well as long as there are
people who refuse to submit to the tyranny of Microsoft.

As for email being visual rather than aural, that is certainly obvious, but
besides the point. Most internet communication is immediate (sort of), like
a spoken conversation. Yet it lacks the tonal and bodily clues to the
speaker's state of mind that accompany spoken conversation. Hence the need
for things like smileys and ALL CAPS MEAN SHOUTING. These generally aren't
needed in traditional written communication because that is not immediate;
there is time for editing and revision to ensure that the proper tone is
struck.

Perhaps a better way to state the ALL CAPS = shouting argument is that it is
a common practice to use all caps in spam and flame emails. The immediate
visual effect is to put people off and make them disinclined to read what
you have to say in a favorable light (analogous to shouting at them in a
spoken conversation). Mr. Mandel's reply to the original all caps email may
be an example of precisely this (although I can only speculate what his
state of mind was when he replied).

> Nor is the convention all that simple. In my experience, some
> people use all caps when they are interspersing their own
> responses with the material from previous e-mails that they
> are responding to. Makes it easier to pick out.

But all caps (or any unorthodox spelling and formatting style;
all-lower-case messages are just as bad) are difficult to read. Actually a
better argument than "it means shouting" is that all caps puts an undue
burden on your audience. If you want people to read what you write, it is
best to make it easy for them to do so. Besides, most email programs use a
symbol (like the ">") to mark text in a reply. (I don't know of one that
doesn't.) This is a much superior solution. It differentiates replies from
the original (and can differentiate nested replies, which all caps cannot)
and keeps the text easy to read.

>(and among linguists, * is reserved for reconstructed forms and
> impossible utterances).

This is a good point and something to watch for, but I think the
opportunities for confusion are few and easily avoided.