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Re: RFC 2119 terms, ALL CAPS vs lower case

Tony Finch <dot@dotat.at> Thu, 17 May 2012 10:54 UTC

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Date: Thu, 17 May 2012 11:54:06 +0100
From: Tony Finch <dot@dotat.at>
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To: Andrew Sullivan <ajs@anvilwalrusden.com>
Subject: Re: RFC 2119 terms, ALL CAPS vs lower case
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Andrew Sullivan <ajs@anvilwalrusden.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 07:17:04AM -0700, Dave Crocker wrote:
> > Case does not define meaning in normal language, why should it here?
>
> That is false.  Consider these two passages:
>
>     The King asked the Queen,
>     and the Queen asked the dairy-maid …
>
> vs
>
>     The king asked the queen,
>     and the queen asked the dairy-maid…

I really can't tell any difference between the two. The capitalization
here is just a conventional mark of respect (cf. God). Better examples:

Polish / polish
"I helped my uncle Jack off a horse"
Catholic / catholic
Conservative / conservative

In the latter two cases you often get disambiguating circumlocutions (such
as "conservative with a small c" in British political discussion) so even
if you can use case to make a distinction in meaning, it's usually too
subtle to rely on if you want to avoid "amusing" misinterpretations.

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot@dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/
Humber, Thames: South or southwest 3 or 4, backing east 4 or 5 later. Slight
or moderate. Mainly fair. Mainly good.

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