- From: James Elmore <James.Elmore@cox.net>
- Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:43:53 -0700
- To: "Ambrose Li" <ambrose.li@gmail.com>
- Cc: CSS <www-style@w3.org>
On Oct 21, 2008, at 8:31 AM, Ambrose Li wrote: > > 2008/10/21 James Elmore <James.Elmore@cox.net>: >> >> In English, 'capitalize' may mean one of several things. The most >> common >> usage is to make something a title, which has all sorts of complex >> rules >> about which words should have initial capitals and which ones >> should not. >> For the computer world, a second common usage is to make (what I >> have heard >> called 'AOL-SPEAK' ;-) ALL TEXT IN CAPS. Somewhere, further down >> the list is >> Initial Capitals, where ALL of the first letters are capitals > > I'm pretty sure the second usage was the common usage (and I still > expect it > to be the meaning unless the context indicates otherwise). > "Uppercase" and > "lowercase" used to be typographic jargon, and they became common only > because of computer usage. > > > -- > cheers, > -ambrose > What I wanted to do was to show that the different uses of capitalization need to be clearly defined and the words chosen by the CSS wg to declare those uses need to be unambiguous, either through usage (which, clearly, 'capitalize' is not -- this thread shows that), or through wording in the specification. I did not want to start a discussion on whether 'capitalization' means all caps or just initial caps; just to make sure the current discussion is focused on selecting the words which are least confusing and making sure the specification is clear. </James>
Received on Tuesday, 21 October 2008 15:44:37 UTC