Marco has been having a spat with the rest of the Internet over whether proper capitalization is necessary in important in a blog post. Marco says that leaving out capitalization indicates laziness, carelessness, lack of education, and apathy regarding the text’s legibility. hilker argues that using all lowercase letters is a stylistic choice. SeanBest added that if Marco is right, e.e. cummings must have been the height of laziness.
I thought I would settle the matter. Capitalization is a matter of convention. It’s sort of like deoderant. You are welcome to flaunt the convention. In some cases, it’s even a good idea to flaunt the convention. However, unless you have a good reason to ignore it, it might reflect poorly on you.
The whole idea of creative license is that there are some creative goals higher than a set of conventions. Something might be left deliberately ambiguous for a richer meaning. It’s okay to break the rules for a reason. However, the rules are the way they are so people can communicate clearly and easily. If you want to break the rules, you need reason that is more important than clarity.
