Last spring Ethan wrote about an electronic communication policy he hoped to develop for his classes, in order to ward off overly informal and often unnecessary emails from students. Today I want to address a far more specific and—dare I say—menacing trend I’ve seen in email: ALL CAPS.
Sometimes it may be just a word or two. Other times, it might be whole lines of text. In either case, the effect is as if the sender were SHOUTING at you.
Even text that is bold, italicized, and underlined all at once doesn’t begin to approach the in-your-face chutzpah of all caps. Even HTML’s infamous blink tag, which evokes the textual equivalent of a shrieking child, does not convey the same sense of frivolous urgency as all caps.
So my question is this: Is it ever okay to use all caps in email or other online communication?
If you are the National Weather Service, it’s perfectly acceptable to send out a message saying:
A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT EST TONIGHT.
Likewise, the many fake Hulks on Twitter get a pass for shouting in all caps.
But what if you’re not the national government or a comic book character? The chances are, then, that all caps are not for you. At least not in any professional context. Or, if you’re a student, not in any email you’d want to send to your professor. All caps require, ironically enough, a light touch, an awareness of exactly how much like SHOUTING they really are. And because electronic communication seems to amplify the slightest ripples in tone, that light touch is incredibly hard to pull off.
But what do you think? Is it ever okay to use all caps? LET US KNOW!!!!
[A Tribute to Everything I Hate photograph courtesy of Flickr user Sebastian Fritzon / Creative Commons License]
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9 Responses to ALL CAPS: IS IT EVER OKAY TO USE THEM???
milner - January 31, 2011 at 5:27 pm
No, all caps is not acceptable but not just because it is “shouting” but because one thing that helps you read is the configuration of the word, such as h’s being tall and n’s short. Y’s, g’s, p’s, and q’s fall below the line. When you write in all caps all the letters are the same height and all configuration clues are lost so the effort to read is increased as each letter has to be examined. Configuration, and content, is also what helps us understand what a word was intended to be when mistyped.
drangie - January 31, 2011 at 5:47 pm
NO, IT’S NEVER OKAY.
lsura - January 31, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Only on International Caps Lock Day. Which isn’t today. :)
derekbruff - January 31, 2011 at 7:23 pm
That Flickr image is AWESOME.
(Putting a single word in all caps can work, I think. A whole sentence? Not unless you’re a Hulk.)
jffoster - January 31, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Every time a bulletin or signal comes out from Coast Guard General Headquarters, it’s in CAPS. Somehow I don’t think the Commandant, Admiral Papp, is “shouting”.
Any of you all ever see a telegram?
mark_sample - January 31, 2011 at 11:19 pm
@jffoster – Indeed, for a number of technical reasons telegrams, diplomatic cables, and military bulletins are in all caps. But just as the computer is not a typewriter, neither is email a telegram or an APB. Indiscriminate use of ALL CAPS demonstrates an unawareness of the form—and of your audience.
@derekbruff – I do agree that a single word or occasional phrase in all caps can work, but never an entire sentence or whole paragraph. I occasionally use ALL CAPS on Twitter for emphasis, but somehow I think it works there, perhaps because of the telegram-like nature of Twitter (to return to @jffoster’s point).
mark_sample - January 31, 2011 at 11:21 pm
@lsura – I’m glad you mentioned International Caps Lock Day! Be sure to celebrate it every June 28 and October 22.
lizgloyn - February 1, 2011 at 9:12 am
99% of the time, I never use all caps for anything, not even a single word.
This means that when I do, the recipient of the e-mail is duly alerted that I am Quite Irritated and that they should pay attention to the content of the e-mail!
tribblek - February 1, 2011 at 9:36 pm
There are venues (IM. Twitter, Email with HTML turned off) where the typical emphasis markers are not possible. I believe all caps is appropriate to express emphasis then. One could also use the *words-in-astrisks*, but I don’t like those as much. They are less familiar to me.