Lack of capital letters

[JustACountryMusicGirlInCowboyBoots]

When did this be one acceptable? I've been pondering it for a while but a new school has opened up near me and the name is initials but all lower case. Full stops after an initial or abbreviation are another thing that have disappeared from use. My trusty Oxford dictionary from the 1960s has a lovely list of abbreviations in the back and things like the bbc are B.B.C. Other abbreviations are a.m. or p.m. or etc. Or e.g.

Where did the full stops and capitals go? How are children supposed to learn the correct way to write if they don't see things written correctly?

They didn't go from all of us. Sometimes posters on Mumsnet will write without capital letters or full stops. If I speak ill of it I will be jumped on and told that they are dyslexic and I am being mean, but I think a good deal of this lack of capitals, full stops at the ends of sentences and for abbreviations is, for the main part, a sign of laziness. Some years ago I did a short course about teaching basics to adult slow-learners and I was regarded as something of a sad old thing because I still put punctuation on an address on an envelope.

I don't know if anyone cares what children are taught. There seems to me to be no rigour and no pride in learning and simply scorn to be poured on anyone who questions sloppiness of speech and written English.

I was taught that major words in a title should be capitalised, so shoudn't your thread be titled "Lack of Capital Letters"?

ee cummings, interesting man, 1894-1962

(I see the curse of Pedants' Corner struck the OP in her first sentence.)

It's interesting isn't it? Obviously the mobile and digital communication revolution has had an effect here (textspeak), and I think it's also a case of people in the UK gradually embracing a simpler, more streamlined style. When I moved to the UK about 20 years ago, I was struck by how sparingly Brits used capitalised words and commas (compared to Americans, for example). I do like the conciseness of contemporary style.

@upinaballoon Is it to do with the rise in texting back in the 90s/00s when it was a pain to capitalise and put in punctuation? I think you can tell old school texters because they still use abbreviations like 2 for to, 4 for four, (should that be 4 4 4 ?!) and u for you.

I do agree that any criticism of poor grammar or spelling is so often shot down as being elitist or non-inclusive in some way.

That will teach me to wear my spectacles!

I'm just thinking that it is easier for me to type on to this laptop than it is to press buttons on the mobile phone, in order to make a capital. There's space here to use two hands. It takes longer on the text machine.

thevexingthingwithallofitisthatpeopledamnwellcanmakeoutwhatyouwanttosayevenwhenyoudispensewitheveryruleyouwereevertaught

I love commas.

Your problem is still using a dictionary from the 1960s!! Language moves on and evolves. Get an up-to-date dictionary.

The trend is towards less punctuation, so fewer hyphens. And we haven't used full stops in initialisms for donkey's years!

This.
We don't use "thee" and "thou" much these days either @JustACountryMusicGirlInCowboyBoots

You don't usually call them "spectacles" either I bet.

B.B.C.? Has it been called this in the past?

When I did RSA typewriting examinations in the 70s/80s, we had the choice of using open punctuation (ie, no punctuation on initialisms and no ordinals (1, 2, 3 instead of 1st, 2nd, 3rd)) or formal punctuation (punctuating everything including i.e. and e.g.), but one could not use a combination of the two styles as that would be marked down. I chose to use open punctuation as it looks less fussy and cluttered on the page. I’ve stuck to that