On Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:55:08 +0000 Patrick O'Callaghan <pocallaghan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Just out of interest, why do some people use the non-existent word > "i", not to mention other violations of capitalization rules when 1) > their Shift key is clearly not broken, and 2) they aren't the poet > e.e. cummings? I've seen a number of people do this (admittedly a tiny > minority) and never understood it. Do they think it's cool? Are they > expressing their inner rebel? Were they punished by their English > teacher at school? Is hitting Shift too much effort? Enquiring minds > want to know. Speaking of that, I never understood why is the "I" capitalized in English? Or, to rephrase it in your words, what's with the "I"? ;-) To begin with, I don't know of any other language which capitalizes this word. Also, while my English teachers were always very explicit that the "I" should always be capitalized, none of them has ever managed to give me a reasonable answer _why_ this is so. While I agree with you that correct spelling is something worth taking care of in e-mail communication, I was always wondering about the completely "randomized" spelling rules in English language. Or rather the utter absence of any real rules. In other languages, those rules often actually make sense, and make the language easier to read and write. For example, the concept of "spelling competitions" in elementary schools was completely foreign to me until I heard about it from English schoolchildren. In most other languages, knowing how to properly spell words does not need any advanced knowledge, and basically is not considered to be a skill worth competing over. But English spelling is soooo contrived that people had to invent spell-checkers to deal with it. :-D And let's not even start with the even more contrived problem of the proper *pronunciation* of the written English. ;-) Best, :-) Marko -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
