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When I's aren't capitalized, it justs looks strange to me. Such as:


etc, etc.

It irks me, but it's really not as serious as text talk. It's not so bad as where I want to pound the person who wrote that into a gummy goop.

[x]
Then why are you here and who let you in?

~Pyrite
[x]

While I can understand that you wish to express your state of mind through your writing, Cacciato, and while I can also understand that you may wish to express your submissive tendencies by leaving your "I"s uncapitalized, the fact remains that this is the Grammar Guild. This is a Guild created for those who are interested in using correct grammar and those who are interested in improving their grammar.

So, while your refusal to capitalize "I"s may have some kind of symbolism for you, the fact remains that it is not grammatically correct and has no place here on the forums of the Grammar Guild. There are plenty of other Guilds and forums (especially the BDSM ones) that would be happy to have you type away in lower case "I"s, but, much like eating a ham sandwich in an Orthodox Synagogue, that's considered rude here and we'd appreciate it if you could try to save that particular form of expression for somewhere more appropriate.

I've met quite a few people who have flawless grammar but for their refusal to capitalize; indeed, these are frequently some of the brightest people I talk to.

@ [ Pyrite ]: He's typing his words out and not using "txt tlk". Yes, I would prefer it if he capitalized his I's, but I believe in picking my battles carefully. If I start making a big deal out of every little typo or imperfection, I'll have to reprimand everyone in the guild. No one is perfect after all.

@ Cacciato: Since this is a grammar guild, we would appreciate it if you would make an effort to capitalize where it's appropriate. I won't censure you if you choose to continue your typing style, but it would make everyone more comfortable if you did. I leave it to your own conscience.

This is a properly formatted sentence. The first letter of a sentence is ALWAYS capitalized. A sentence always ends in a punctuation mark, usually a period, but sometimes a question mark or exclamation point. Punctuation such as the comma, the colon and the semicolon are used as sentence pausers. Never should a sentence end with one of these.

I think it is interesting that we capitalize the first-person, singular pronoun "I" in the first place. Allow me to consider the idea behind it, and pardon me here as I have never looked into any linguistic history on this matter. Was it just a matter of linguistic development? If so, why this particular pronoun when the German 'ich' (I) remains uncapitalized, as does the the French 'je', and both these languages heavily influenced English (but really, which language hasn't?), and no pronoun is capitalized in French and only the formal 'Sie' (you, formal, sing. and pl.) is capitalized in German. It seems that other languages have some sort of logic for doing things the way they do, so I am wondering if it is the same here. It seems like it is pointing to the owner of the "I" as being most important. Or is this just me being too philosphical?

Having said that, and pardon the length, I will say that it does look weird uncapitalized, and it's kind of creepy in all those recent gadgets like iPods and such. However, it could very well stand for something else, like internet, but who knows.