1104
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] rockerface@lemm.ee 17 points 2 years ago

Minuscule letters were invented to write on paper and similar materials, because curved strokes had lower probability of tearing the material (as opposed to majuscule letters' angular features, adapted to carving in stone or similar materials). Now that we're not restricted by materials, might as well only use one case

[-] oce@jlai.lu 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

lower probability of tearing the material

Is that well documented? I thought it was just because it makes writing more fluid, and people tend to evolve towards fluid movements when they repeat the same ones all the time as it requires less energy. Ex: high-level musicians or sport practicionners.

[-] kpb@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

They tried documenting it, but the material kept tearing

[-] Rubanski@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago

I've heard that that's the reason alphabets from languages in the South East Asia (like Thai or Khmer) is all about circles as to not tear the writing material back in the day - leaves.

[-] nonfuinoncuro@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago

I'm a big fan of Chinese seal script used for stone engravings just like the look

Make Writing (adapted for) Stone Again

[-] aulin@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

They're also way faster to read though.

[-] Thrashy@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I did a deep dive on this recently (my day job is in architecture, and in the US we infamously MAKE ALL NOTES ON DRAWINGS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE THAT'S THE WAY WE'VE DONE IT SINCE WE HAND LETTERED IN BLOCK PRINT SO THAT DIFFERENT DRAFTERS' SHEETS ALL LOOKED CONSISTENT) and it turns out that's 100% just an acclimation effect -- the old conventional wisdom of skilled readers recognizing lower-case word shapes doesn't hold water. If tomorrow we deleted lower-case letters from every Latin font on earth, given time we'd be able to read all-caps text just as fast as we currently read sentence case.

Which was disappointing for me to find out, since I REALLY HATE SHOUTING AT CONTRACTORS THROUGH THE PAGE ALL THE TIME and wish I could make a convincing case for sentence case, but oh well.

[-] aulin@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

That's good to know. And in the premise of this thread it's relevant. However, since we're used to sentence case now, it still makes sense to keep it that way unless there's a compelling reason to switch.

On the other hand, street signs in Sweden, where I come from, are uppercase. I was completely used to that despite reading mostly sentence case in any other situation. However, since I moved to Denmark, where street signs are sentence case, I now feel like it takes slightly longer to parse signs when I go to Sweden. I guess if I'm correct, that's a case for quick acclimatation, as this happened over only a few years.

[-] SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Can I ask what your night job is?

[-] Thrashy@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Toddler dad, mostly.

this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
1104 points (98.6% liked)

Microblog Memes

11028 readers
466 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

RULES:

  1. Your post must be a screen capture of a microblog-type post that includes the UI of the site it came from, preferably also including the avatar and username of the original poster. Including relevant comments made to the original post is encouraged.
  2. Your post, included comments, or your title/comment should include some kind of commentary or remark on the subject of the screen capture. Your title must include at least one word relevant to your post.
  3. You are encouraged to provide a link back to the source of your screen capture in the body of your post.
  4. Current politics and news are allowed, but discouraged. There MUST be some kind of human commentary/reaction included (either by the original poster or you). Just news articles or headlines will be deleted.
  5. Doctored posts/images and AI are allowed, but discouraged. You MUST indicate this in your post (even if you didn't originally know). If an image is found to be fabricated or edited in any way and it is not properly labeled, it will be deleted.
  6. Absolutely no NSFL content.
  7. Be nice. Don't take anything personally. Take political debates to the appropriate communities. Take personal disagreements & arguments to private messages.
  8. No advertising, brand promotion, or guerrilla marketing.

RELATED COMMUNITIES:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS