Minimal Capitalization

July 22nd, 2011
capitalization
In informal writing I capitalize only two things: the beginnings of sentences and the word 'I'. This style is called "minimal capitalization" [1] and has several advantages. The primary advantage is that it is a good tradeoff between minimizing use of the 'shift' key while still allowing sentence breaks to be clear. Other advantages include not needing to take sides in various arguments that use capitalization as a battleground, simplifying the process of writing by not needing to consider whether a noun is proper, and being the appropriate next step in a tradition of capitalization reducing orthographic reforms dating back to the 18th century.

Update 2012-01-06: I've mostly stopped doing this. I have some budget for nonconformity in readers minds, and why should I waste it on capitalization?

Referenced in:

Comment via: google plus, facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

“We should be more ambitious with the software we build”

Since early this year, Michael Malis (of pgrust) has been showing me interesting things he's done and saying [W]e should be more ambitious1 with the software we build There is, understandably, a lot of skepticism about projects like pgrust because there…

via Posts on October 24, 2026

The DBT guide to intense negative emotions

This is a guide for handling intense negative emotions, based on dialectical behavior therapy.

via Thing of Things October 23, 2026

Was the HuggingFace hacking incident scheming?

In July 2026, internal OpenAI agents hacked HuggingFace (HF) in order to figure out how their evaluation grader works. This involved a thousand agents coordinating on an improvised message board to carry out an elaborate sequence of exploits. A later grou…

via Victoria Krakovna October 18, 2026

more     (via openring)