one more response

[Mark A Mandel]

On Mon, 9 Sep 2002 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:

#not used to. The idea that "most people seem to find it easier to read lower
#case text" is just unsubstantiated opinion without some kind of empirical
#evidence.

AAMOF, it is more than that. I can't give cites, but I know I have read
cites of studies... and maybe Robbin Battison knows (some little voice
in the back of my head suggests so). The basic reason is that lowercase
Roman lettering is rich in ascenders and descenders, so that many words
have outlines that are much more distinctive than the uniformly
rectangular outlines of Roman uppercase. Fluent readers have learned to
use this information, along with many other cues -- some of which, I
suppose, are also more common in lowercase.

-- Mark A. Mandel