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This is important to me:

s/Coffeescript/CoffeeScript/g

s/Javascript/JavaScript/g



And s/Nvidia/NVIDIA/g? Ugh.

English has a normal way to deal with proper nouns, the first letter are capitalised, the others aren't. CamelCase is an exceptional phenomenon in written English. It's not unusual for exceptional stuff to get regularised, particularly (relatively) high-frequency words like Javascript. Especially since there is zero loss of information involved; there is no added ambiguity.


I don't know why so many people are cavalier about this. Proper capitalization is part of proper spelling, which is important for clear communication. Whether it's 37Signals, Github, or Javascript, it irks me every time.

This cavalier attitude is so entrenched that attempts to correct it are sometimes even met with hostility, which on HN manifests itself as downvotes. Apparently there are those who feel that comments on this subject (e.g., this one or its parent) don't add to the discussion. And yet, I sometimes stop reading otherwise interesting articles simply because they exceed my misspelling or typo threshold—reading badly edited copy is unpleasant, and the lack of attention to detail undermines its credibility. I'd much prefer to avoid the problem altogether. In that spirit, I'd like to offer some surefire advice on how to prevent this kind of nitpicking: Get it right in the first place. Anyone who can develop awesome web apps or write an optimizing compiler can surely spell 37signals, GitHub, and JavaScript correctly as well.


    I don't know why so many people are cavalier about this.
    Proper capitalization is part of proper spelling [...]
My favorite example of this behavior is when copywriters, graphic designers, etc. are inconsistent regarding the capitalization of the name of their own organization. I can't count all the times I couldn't figure out how best to bookmark an organization's website because the copywriters, etc. referred to it as Organization, ORGANIZATION, OrganiZation, and Organi Zation.


> I don't know why so many people are cavalier about this. Proper capitalization is part of proper spelling, which is important for clear communication. Whether it's 37Signals, Github, or Javascript, it irks me every time.

So, presumably, is the proper use of articles, but how many people do you know who insert 'The' before all and only weak proper nouns? (For example: Is your alma mater University of Blah or The University of Blah? I'll bet you don't know; I didn't.) I'm on your side, and I like to make this distinction; but it's obvious that we have to draw the line somewhere or spend so much time on pedantry that we have no time left for meaning, and I don't have a problem with people who choose to draw the line before worrying about internal capitalisation.


Sometimes punctuation and capitalization is important. sometimes its not




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