Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I'm just having fun

jyn.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 261 posts

Re: I'm just having fun

#81

Post by satvikpendem »

ccapitalK wrote: post #71

I'm asking this question purely out of curiosity, and not as a snark, is there any particular reason why you don't capitalise the beginnings of your sentences? It seems strange to go to the effort of capitalising STEM and putting a hyphen in college-level without capitalising the letters. Is it something like the push towards sans-serif fonts because some groups of people find it easier to read?

Gen Z linguistic phenomenon. It's to signify a more authentic or calmer, more personable style rather than an overly literary one. It's kind of nice actually, like talking to a friend about their thoughts.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/18/death-of-cap...

Re: I'm just having fun

#82

Post by burningChrome »

ccapitalK wrote: post #71

I'm asking this question purely out of curiosity, and not as a snark, is there any particular reason why you don't capitalise the beginnings of your sentences? It seems strange to go to the effort of capitalising STEM and putting a hyphen in college-level without capitalising the letters. Is it something like the push towards sans-serif fonts because some groups of people find it easier to read?

My dev friends used to do this as a sort of inside joke around the office. If you were cool and hip, you wrote emails like this as a way to sort of thumb your nose at the establishment.

I did it for a while until I was considered a "senior" dev and one of the VP's pulled me aside and said it reflects poorly on me when I'm not using proper grammar. He said as a senior dev in the org, I should hold myself to a higher standard. At which time, I started using proper grammar.

Always puts a smile on my face when I see this is still a thing in certain circles. Nonconformity isn't quite dead - and that's a good thing.

Re: I'm just having fun

#83

Post by satvikpendem »

rtewrtjkewrkj wrote: post #10

I feel like I can't have fun anymore because the AI can just do the thing instantly and you've got people on this website advocating to let the AI do everything while you merely read the code.

Who cares? Just disable or pay no heed to AI. Did you stop correcting your prose because spellcheck or grammarly could do it for you? Sometimes the human thing to do is to be the opposite of the zeitgeist.

Re: I'm just having fun

#84

Post by satvikpendem »

flumpcakes wrote: post #36

Not addressing the content directly but a note on the formatting: I find it extremely hard to read sentences by people that refuse to use normal formatting/grammar. Why is there no capitalisation? I've seen this before and it's just confusing and jarring. Clearly this is done on purpose but I don't know why an author would be so anti-reader.

I hate that people comment on this. It's a fascinating linguistic phenomenon that bothers some people but signals to others that it's for them, in a way. Linguistics is a descriptive, not a prescriptive, field. Humans have been speaking and writing in a myriad of ways for thousands of years that do not strictly correspond to the current du jour.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/18/death-of-cap...

Re: I'm just having fun

#87

Post by lovich »

ccapitalK wrote: post #71

I'm asking this question purely out of curiosity, and not as a snark, is there any particular reason why you don't capitalise the beginnings of your sentences? It seems strange to go to the effort of capitalising STEM and putting a hyphen in college-level without capitalising the letters. Is it something like the push towards sans-serif fonts because some groups of people find it easier to read?

I have apparently been in a bubble based on the other commenter saying this was a gen z phenomenon.

Back in the 1337sp43k days in my internet circles, typing in all lowercase other than acronyms was the opposite of TYPING IN ALL CAPS. We used it to infer a whisper type connotation to the text.

Re: I'm just having fun

#88

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

satvikpendem wrote: post #81
ccapitalK wrote: post #71

I'm asking this question purely out of curiosity, and not as a snark, is there any particular reason why you don't capitalise the beginnings of your sentences? It seems strange to go to the effort of capitalising STEM and putting a hyphen in college-level without capitalising the letters. Is it something like the push towards sans-serif fonts because some groups of people find it easier to read?

Gen Z linguistic phenomenon. It's to signify a more authentic or calmer, more personable style rather than an overly literary one. It's kind of nice actually, like talking to a friend about their thoughts. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/18/death-of-cap...

It's how we all used to talk on IRC, well before Gen Z came online :)

Re: I'm just having fun

#89

Post by satvikpendem »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #88
satvikpendem wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gen Z linguistic phenomenon. It's to signify a more authentic or calmer, more personable style rather than an overly literary one. It's kind of nice actually, like talking to a friend about their thoughts. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/18/death-of-cap...

It's how we all used to talk on IRC, well before Gen Z came online :)

Yes however I doubt the author was an IRC user. For chats people generay do use lowercase cause it's easier but this article is also about using lowercase outside of chats.
Post reply on HN