AIBU to think we should stop using capital letters entirely?

[MRex]

My toddler is desperate to understand letters, but in cartoon songs he finds little/big letters confusing. This is my sole reason for realising that yes, actually it is confusing. Why do we make everyone learn two letter styles and two pronunciations (normal and phonetic), when they could learn half that and be off reading? While it might train the brain a little, we'd be better using that same training time on learning Mandarin or Russian characters. Anyone who struggles with letters has a better chance getting on if there's only "a" pronounced "ah" to learn too. What great reason to keep both am I missing?

Most children manage to learn to read and write just fine. No rush to master it as a toddler, that's what primary school is for.

English is a dog's breakfast of a language. It's so stupid and confusing that we have huge competitions where kids win prizes for correct spelling.

It's my native language and the main tool of my trade but it does make me laugh. Make any changes you like though; the one saving grace of English is how malleable it is, and whatever you do to it may be become widely adopted in the future.

In German all nouns have capital letters. After learning German I found it really hard to not do it all the time because it made more sense to me!

My Name is Mary and I went to the Shop and bought some Apples. Much better than just proper nouns imo. So yes OP YABU, I want more capital letters! 😂😂

Exactly @fairynick and THEN you have to remember if each noun is masculine, feminine or neutral... der Hund, die Katze, das Boot

@Macca84 I remember in my very first German lesson my teacher said there was 16 ways of say “the” and I almost passed out 😂

BendingSpoons

There are many languages which don’t have capital letters - basically all languages which don’t use the Roman alphabet.

The main issue with writing English phonetically is that different accents pronounce words in different ways. How many times have we had the rhotive rrr argument on here when people have tried to write words (such as names) as they are pronounced?

So if you’re writing it phonetically, which accent would you choose? RP ‘Queen’s English’? So what about all the Northerners- who now have to learn that bath is written bahth, and father is written fahther even though they pronounce bath differently to the first part of father? And now we’ve in the same situation where it’s not written as it sounds?

Or should each region write things differently, just like they did circa 1600 before the first dictionary was invented, precisely to stop this sort of confusion and standardise spelling?

The other linguistic argument against phonetic spelling is that it can obscure the relationships between words, words with the same root or same prefix/suffix would no longer be spelled in a similar manner. Think about advertise/advertisement. Or should that be advuhtighs and advertissment?

Why must we constantly lower our expectations and standards with language and grammar?

With most things really. It seems to be that kids can't struggle or find things tricky or not grasp a concept instantly. Instead of perseverance,trial and error and practice parents just seem to want to remove all obstacles. It's not limited to language and grammar.

Teaching your toddler to "read" is generally counter productive when they start school. Better teaching them the phonics and letter sounds. The way we were taught as children is not the way they teach now, so 9 times out of 10 they get taught wrong at home and the school then has to undo that work and start from the beginning. If you don't get it yourself then leave alone and let the professionals do it.

Am I unreasonable to be quite so amused that a complaint about capital letters has been posted in the one section in MN to have a title made up entirely of capital letters?

If we used a phonetic system where a always = “ah” then we’ll need more letters. There’s 20 vowel sounds in English and only 5 vowels (6 if you count Y but if you used that you’d need another one for when Y is a consonant).

This is a joke, right? If not, but you and your toddler both need to get a Grip.

Am I unreasonable to be quite so amused that a complaint about capital letters has been posted in the one section in MN to have a title made up entirely of capital letters?

I'm loving the fact that in a title wanting to abolish capital letters - it starts with four capital letters.

Oh, and don’t forget, capitals are the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse, and helping your uncle jack off a horse 😂

There is nothing about the English language that is simple to learn, especially for small children. Capital letters are the least of its problems.

Oh, and don’t forget, capitals are the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse, and helping your uncle jack off a horse

Omg 😂😂😂.

I choked on my dinner reading this.

Language is designed to be effective once you're familiar with it. Sacrificing some of that effectiveness to make it a bit easier for children to learn is a very poor tradeoff given that they spend just a few years learning it and then decades using it.

Ah yes. A language based on the capabilities of a two year old.
I bet we can great some world class literature out of that.
YABU
And bloody ridiculous.
Two year olds grow up

The way we were taught as children is not the way they teach now, so 9 times out of 10 they get taught wrong at home and the school then has to undo that work and start from the beginning. If you don't get it yourself then leave alone and let the professionals do it.

I remember a 'professional' ticking off my mother for teaching me to read 50 years ago. I could read when I got to nursery, and, despite the fact that she did it 'wrong' never struggled. Fact is, there is not one way to teach kids to read, just as there is not one way that kids learn to read.
We're all different, which is why teachers are supposed to differentiate in their teaching

Oh well if the OP's child needs no capital letters, who's to argue - change the English language all over the world.

Fucking ridiculous.

This is great, my top 3 are:

1. Ability to identify proper nouns
2. Ability to quickly scan text
3. He's a bit young to understand Uncle Jack and the horse, I'll save that a few years, but I will use it if he has questions at an older age

It would be difficult, odd and pointless to keep a child away from finding out what any letters are out of some concern over future reading capability. He will have stories read, nursery rhymes sung and cartoons put on, because he likes them; knock yourself out hiding them from your own child.

as we are getting rid of capital letters, maybe it's time to change the english language into a phonetic language. because once the toddler has to master the art of reading, it will become apparent that b is not a bee, c is not to see and k is not your friend kay ... it's so confusing!!!

DS knew letters and numbers from a very early age. He didn't start to read until he was six years old.

Nobody has to hide anything, but there's no point in worrying that they'll get confused with different types of letters.

Also, I'm surprised you didn't mention cursive. That's a second type with lower and upper case. So, four types of letters to be able to read.

And then there's doctors' too. I could go on.