On Fri, Feb 01, 2013 at 12:37:47AM +0100, Marko Vojinovic wrote: > 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? my first/last two pennies: "very early on", typesetters had difficulty telling the difference between "i" and "j" since manuscripts were written in longhand. I heard this in grade school, tho, so it may have been made up to keep students quiet. > 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 -- Gary Kline kline@xxxxxxxxxxx http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix Twenty-six years of service to the Unix community. -- 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
