pretty fonts for your desktop

neenee · Veteran Joined: 20 Jul 2003 Posts: 1786

worry not. i do not mind any of this. i will not
change the way i type in chat and on boards.

i do find the replies quite interesting, though
perhaps a moderator would be so kind as to
split this thread into on-topic and off-topic
replies, creating a new thread for the off-
topic ones with a small link to my first post to
illustrate what the discussion is about?

kind regards.

wilburpan · l33t Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 977

neenee · Veteran Joined: 20 Jul 2003 Posts: 1786

well, if there is such a problem with me not using capitals,
i'd almost feel my posts are unwanted here. but since no
others on any other board have complained about how i
write my posts, i will just see this as a phase i have to go
through before people stop commenting on it.

apologies to those who find my posts an insult to the
english language; i will try not to post anything you will
have to read and steer clear of posting in this section of
the board.

kind regards.

Xiderpunk · Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 5:24 pm Post subject:

Thanks neenee for the guide,

*Off Topic*
personally speaking.. I think it's rude for others to point out grammatical, punctuation errors. Anyway as far as I am concerned the content of posts is what counts, not how it is written.

Those that do pick up on such things, need to be less anal.

FourARSEDSheep · Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2003 8:35 pm Post subject:

does anyone know a nice way to get these fonts working in KDE?

thanks

razamatan · Apprentice Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 160

ok... i'm gonna weigh in on this talk about not using caps, b/c i don't use caps when i do email.... saves a keystroke of (shift). ppl have said, "then why the hell do you do the ....'s?" simple... i do that when i think or to inflect stronger pauses.

another reason i'm weighing in is b/c i'm a grad student studying ai & cognitive science, currently focusing on the domain of natural language processing (nlp).

the "removing spaces" analogy is a poor one because "spaces between words" is a syntax that is very important in semantic processing for both humans and nlp algorithms (i was a psych major, too as an undergrad). however, capitalization is hardly (note: i didn't say "not") necessary for semantic processing. eastern languages like japanese, chinese, korean, etc. don't even have the notion of "capitals", but it appears that people who use those languages can communicate perfectly well.

to furthur show that capitals are hardly necessary, let's switch modalities to auditory communication. do you pronounce a capitalized word differently than if it was in lowercase?

so, to summarize: capitals are used primarily for disambiguation and semantic cueing for proper nouns. the sole reason why ppl capitalize the first word in a sentence was only for visual clarity beyond the period. but in the word processed world (where there should be 2 spaces between a period that marks the end of a sentence and a new sentence), you really don't need to capitalize it. you can't confuse initials like e. e. cummings and ends of sentences, like this. right?

QED.
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razamatan · Apprentice Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 160

actually... now that i looked at the html'ed version of that post, it turned all my double spaces to a single space. html doesn't handle the notion of whitespace too well. another grievance on markup languages.

i could do

ben_h · Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2003 4:52 am Post subject:

If you've got the choice of putting two spaces after the end of a sentence, or using capitals properly, why not just go with the capitals? Both take an extra keypress, and frakly, it's not all that much trouble to hold the SHIFT key for a second while you hit a letter.

neenee, none of this was intended as abuse I'm pretty sure, but as constructive criticism. If you're going to be writing documents for a general audience, then I think it's fair when people comment that the punctuation and formatting is malformed.

But I think the main issue is that this is the "thin end of the wedge" -- I'm not trying to claim that your post was unintelligible. It would have been easier to read if it were formatted better, but it wasn't imposible.

The real issue is, IMO, kids who are going through school now completely surrounded by electronic devices which either correct spelling for them, meaning that they never learn to do it themselves, or encourage word mangling (too -> 2, you -> u, etc). Unless something is done about this, then within a decade or three, no one will be able to write properly.

Moreover, It's already happening. If I read through my local paper (The Courier Mail; it's crap, but still), then I find no end of spelling and grammar errors in both articles and advertisements. It really gets on my nerves, and I think it's a serious issue.

undrwater · Guru Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 312 Location: Caucasia

razamatan · Apprentice Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 160

The Mountain Man · l33t Joined: 03 Sep 2003 Posts: 643

People say, "even w/o proper caps and punc my post can stil be red." This is true, and while it may be "good enough" for basic communication, why settle for good enough when you can strive for excellence? If you're going to take the time to render your thoughts into written form, why not strive to make it as easy to read as possible rather than encouraging people to skip over your posts because they get tired of trying to make sense of your non-standard use of the written word?

To put it more frankly, if you can't be bothered to write properly then I can't be bothered to read what you have to say.

neenee · Veteran Joined: 20 Jul 2003 Posts: 1786

but in the end, you did bother to take
the time to reply. and i doubt you re-
plied to something you did not read.

thank you for your time and your con-
structive reply.

IshThe5th · n00b Joined: 13 Feb 2003 Posts: 3

Please people, capitalization is completely insignificant for what neenee needed to convey to the audience. The purpose of the post was to get across as simply as possible the method by which people may improve fonts on their systems. I think nazamatan made an excellent point with the fact that you do not pronounce capitalization in speech, yet speech is perfectly comprehendible. On the other hand, slurring together words and skipping spaces certainly makes sentences incredibly more difficult to interpret; that is a completely inappropriate comparision. I would argue that the usage of words such as "w/o" and "punc" and mispelled words such as "red" also decrease the legibility of a sentence. But I fail to understand how lack of capitalization makes a post any less comprehendible. I use it out of habit, but I have just as easy of a time reading a post without capitalization as I do reading one that makes use of it.

rewt_rawt · n00b Joined: 31 Oct 2003 Posts: 22

Anyway...

does anyone know a nice way to get these fonts working in KDE?

-Tom M
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ebrostig · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:56 pm Post subject:

I DON'T KNOW WHY IT IS SO DIFFICULT TO USE A MIX OF UPPER AND LOWER CASE WHEN WRITING.

I FIND IT SLOPPY WHEN A USER IGNORES BASIC RULES OF WRITING JUST TO MAKE HIM OR HERSELF MORE INTERESTING AND MORE 1337.

WHY IS IT A PROBLEM TO USE UPPER AND LOWER CASE? IT TAKES AN EXTRA KEY PRESS! WOOW! i'M JUST BAFFELED.

ERIK
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neenee · Veteran Joined: 20 Jul 2003 Posts: 1786

i will quote myself, since it seems you did not read the
thread before posting:

i enjoy the small things i can change when writing online
without being berated for it too much; it gives me a feeling
of freedom in a sense.

that is my reason for typing how i do. i am not attempting
to make myself more interesting and more '1337' as you
put it, nor am i not using capitals because i find using them
to be 'so difficult'.

as for the usage of upper and lower case being a problem:

the only problem i see is that people feeling strongly about
proper casing and the english language in general frown
upon what i enjoy when it comes to typing.

if i would mind pressing or holding keys, i would probably
not post as much as i do.

i think that covers your questions.

have a nice day.

ps. was there really necessary to reply in only capitals? it
makes me wonder if you yourself are not a user attempting
'to make him or herself more interesting and more 1337'..

irf2003 · Veteran Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 1078

Nu-Bee_4VR · Apprentice Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 245

neenee · Veteran Joined: 20 Jul 2003 Posts: 1786

thank you for your constructive reply :wink:

GentooBox · Veteran Joined: 22 Jun 2003 Posts: 1168 Location: Denmark

Tazmanian · Apprentice Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 222

Tazmanian · Apprentice Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 222

Hooray for off-topicness! :wink:

(Perhaps the moderator(s) should really do something about this.... I can see this going on for a while.)

Tazmanian · Apprentice Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 222

Tazmanian · Apprentice Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 222

Heh, can you tell I just found this thread? :wink:

GentooBox · Veteran Joined: 22 Jun 2003 Posts: 1168 Location: Denmark