SHOUTING; emphasis?

[Dave Wilton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Beth Simon
> Sent: Sunday, September 08, 2002 3:33 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: SHOUTING; emphasis?
>
>
> why is capping an act of refusal to sub to microsoft? because one is
> rebuffing the other stylistic options?

Sorry, bad joke. Microsoft has nothing to do with capping. The comment was
regarding the supposed "fading" of the old ASCII formating conventions (such
as capping and *for emphasis*). HTML email allows you more formatting
options that don't limit you to ASCII characters, obviating the need for the
old ASCII formatting conventions. But many people don't use programs that
support HTML mail and the original ASCII conventions are still alive and
well.

Microsoft email programs set HTML email as the default (you can change this,
but many people don't know to do this). HTML allows you to use various
fonts, italics, graphics, and other formatting options. But it eats up
bandwidth and takes more time for the messages to display. There's also the
possibility for inserting destructive scripts and viruses into HTML email.
Also, many non-Microsoft email programs don't do HTML, making HTML mail
difficult to read.