[asterisk-biz] Capitalisation in English writing from Indian subcontinent

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Alex Balashov wrote:
> Geraint Lee wrote:
>
>   
>> no conclusions seem to have been drawn from the original 
>> question/observation though! 
>>     
>
> I was just about to say the same thing.
>
>   
>> and yes i have noticed random 
>> capitalisation in the past just ignored it and carried on with life, 
>> after all, it's not like it takes any meaning away from what's been written.
>>     
>
> Depending on who is doing the reading, it can communicate the impression 
> of an amateur, fly-by-night operation and negatively impact business.
>
> But that is beside the point of this thread;  as I said to Jai, I am not 
> expressing an "opinion" here - plenty of other threads have seen that 
> already.
>
> What I do find surprising is that nobody has found this phenomenon 
> curious enough to raise the topic before.  It's quite conspicuous, and 
> thus piques my curiosity.
>
>   

To be perfectly honest, I think the consistency you've heretofore seen
has been simply because of a consistency in its use by some writers
common to the forum. Whether by misunderstanding or by simply a desire
for visual emphasis (there is so little one can do to emphasise
straight, unformatted text) of certain key words or terms that those
writers feel to be important. I've seen somewhat random, and haphazard
capitalisation from a variety of 'native' English speakers here in the
US time and time again, and it often boils down to preference. It's
often a learned affectation, in imitation of someone they've seen do the
very same thing. I would find it incredibly difficult to believe that
there's some standardisation of improper capitalisation that stems from
former British colonies and their understanding of English.

If public school taught me one thing it's that people who grow up in the
UK and people who grow up in the US are by no means an adequate
barometer of acceptable grammar, spelling, punctuation, or capitalisation.

But then, having two English professors for parents, there were often
great wars fought over the dinner table as to whether or not English
should be a descriptive or a prescriptive language. I have a bad habit
of subconsciously and immediately judging someone who uses poor grammar
or spelling (in a manner consistent with a lack of understanding as
opposed to simple typos), but if that were my only barometer for dealing
with a company, there would be few companies with which I would bother
dealing. My father, quick to defend the descriptive camp, would argue
that such a thing goes against the idea of language, and that language
itself is there for accepted communication. As long as both parties can
agree that an idea has been conveyed properly and appropriately, the
basic rules of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalisation need
not be as strict as I might want them.

Some Asian languages have NO capitalisation whatsoever.  Japanese, for
instance, has no capitalisation or even spacing, preferring to rely on
interspersed differentiation of syllabaries in order to break up a
sentence into something meaningful. It's sometimes difficult to teach
someone coming from such a tradition to understand why he sees random
capitalisation on the Internet, in advertising copy, in newspapers,
etc.  Knowing this, I'm often somewhat lenient when I read what is
written by non-native speakers, as I know the important part is to
convey the information. If they're making an honest effort to convey
information, they are, in essence, speaking the same language as I.

It is readily apparent, however, when someone is NOT interested in
making an effort to convey information. And those are the missives I
find suspect. Those are the emails on the list that, to me, scream
'scam.'   The emails from Jai, Rehan, and dozens of other non-native
speakers that you occasionally blast for sounding poorly-written are, to
me, completely acceptable in that I know that they're trying very hard
to convey important information, and are both happy and eager to answer
questions if I am confused about something they say. I neither begrudge
them their capitalisation nor their grammar if there are mistakes. They
often, of course, get defensive when you lambaste them publicly, but
that's to be expected. I would do the same, I imagine, even if I didn't
say so, I'd still FEEL unnecessarily chastised.

On the flip side, there are those who drop in and just blast a quick,
unintelligible spam, Google-translated from Chinese, Polish, Russian,
Thai (or some other language that a computer translates VERY poorly),
and then refuse to answer any questions about intent, often preferring
to hide behind a shield of defensiveness. Those emails -- those are the
ones which cause me to lose all faith in the company or product being
offered. They say to me that if someone is not willing to at least try
to be understood by me when selling me his product, he's certainly not
going to bother if I end up having a problem with his product.

N.