Posted on by cindygoesbeyond

national lowercase day

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This fun “holiday”, established in 2011, plays with language in a way that makes texters happy. Today, capital letters are ignored in favor of using lowercase letters.

I’m actually one who observes traditional grammar and punctuation when I text. I did briefly consider typing this post all in lowercase, to celebrate national lowercase day. However, that thought truly was brief. As you can see, I opted for the usual.

To appreciate the day, I offer instead rules to help stop overcapitalizing. Capital letters are appropriate for specific uses, such as beginning a sentence, proper names and titles. Many writers tend to overuse them though. The following tips will help.

national lowercase day title meme

E. E. Cummings

Before posting rules to prevent overusing capital letters, I must mention poet E. E. Cummings. This man appreciated lowercase letters!

E. E. Cummings often wrote his poems all in lowercase and frequently omitted punctuation as well.

Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1894. He attended high school there, where he studied Latin and Greek. He later graduated with a BA and MA from Harvard. Cummings is regarded as one of the most innovative and creative poets of his time. He experimented with poetic form and language, ultimately creating his own distinctive writing style.

Cummings used lowercase letters in his poems, along with invented words and words used in nontraditional ways. He also created visually intriguing patterns across the page with his words. By his death in 1962, E. E. Cummings was recognized as a great lyrical poet who made experimental poetry attractive to readers.

national lowercase day ee cummings
Innovative poet, E. E. Cummings would appreciate national lowercase day!
national lowercase day ee cummings poem
in honor of national lowercase day, “love is a place”, by e.e. cummings

Words to Stop Capitalizing

Using capital letters and lowercase letters correctly matters, unless, like E. E. Cummings, your writing style is considered innovative. For the rest of us, proper usage makes us look smarter and more professional and polished. Plus, the message we hope to convey comes through, without the distraction caused by misuse of capital and lowercase letters.

Here are easy to learn rules, about when to use lowercase and when to use capital letters.

national lowercase day abc

Directions

Directions such as east and west are not capitalized, unless they are used in an address. Directional words in addresses are typically abbreviated anyway.

Correct: 1234 W. Happy Street or 5678 West Highway 32

Incorrect: 1234 w. Happy Street or 5678 west Highway 32

Correct: I’m driving east on Main Street.

Incorrect: I’m driving East on Main Street.

Seasons

In the same way, seasons are written in lowercase as well, unless they are part of a title or event.

Correct: I love spring!

Incorrect: I love Spring!

Correct: I’m attending the Downtown Fall Festival Saturday.

Incorrect: I’m attending the Downtown fall Festival Saturday.

national lowercase day book of letters

Special Occasions

Words for events such as birthday, anniversary and party are not capitalized, unless they are included with someone’s name as a special occasion.

Correct: I hope you have a fun anniversary!

Incorrect: I hope you have a fun Anniversary!

Correct: You are invited to Molly’s 13th Birthday Party.

Incorrect: You are invited to Molly’s 13th birthday party.

Correct: Happy Birthday, George!

Incorrect: Happy birthday, George!

Correct: Have a happy birthday, George.

Incorrect: Have a Happy Birthday, George.

Job Titles and Careers

Job titles use lowercase, unless they come before your name.

Correct: I’m a professor at the university.

Incorrect: I’m a Professor at the university.

Correct: I’m Professor Anderson.

Incorrect: I’m professor Anderson.

Careers don’t require capital letters, typically, unless used in a title.

Correct: Bart is a writer.

Incorrect: Bart is a Writer.

Correct: Bart is attending the SW Missouri Writer’s Conference.

Incorrect: Bart is attending the SW Missouri writer’s conference.

national lowercase day alphabet

Important Sounding Words

Sometimes, to show the importance of a word, we capitalize when we should use lowercase.

Correct: I majored in business in college.

Incorrect: I Majored in Business in college.

Correct: Karen is a big supporter of pet rescue agencies.

Incorrect: Karen is a big Supporter of Pet Rescue Agencies.

Correct: Karen is a supporter of the Pet Rescue Agency of Dallas.

Incorrect: Karen is a Supporter of the pet rescue agency of Dallas.

Happy national lowercase day

Writing certainly has standardized rules. Those rules about grammar, punctuation and upper and lowercase letters help us to make sense of the words we write and read.

However, it is also true that every writer has his or her own unique style. I hope these tips help in your every day messages and social media posts, as you develop your own personal writing style.

Now, can we discuss punctuation and run on sentences?

national lowercase day poem
national lowercase day poem by e.e. cummings

Check out this website, to see how well you do using capital and lowercase letters.

www.grammarbook.com

And try this fun five sentence writing challenge!

E. E. Cummings for national lowercase day:

 

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50 Replies to “national lowercase day”

  1. Great article, something we can all improve on. I found it very informative and inspiring.
    Keep up the hard work Cindy……

    Reply

  2. Thank you for this. I tend to be a bit obsessive over grammar, to the point of always using a grammar tool (Grammarly). I didn’t know some of these rules, so thank you for the reminders. I am happy that my kids are both learning proper grammar in school, now I have to make sure they use it. That may be the hard part.

    Reply

    1. We made up some games when our kids were young to help them remember. And we had a few simple rules. For example none of us were allowed lazy speech. We could say “thing”. We figured out the correct word or the descriptive word instead. 😃

      Reply

  4. I like the rules of grammar and enjoyed reading through all of these. Sometimes, I get them wrong but I loved learning these!

    Reply

  9. I’m sure I’ve made plenty of these mistakes (even in my adult life, when I was supposed to know better).

    I just want you to know that I’m so much more likely to remember lessons like this than I ever will by reading style guides and text books.

    The idiosyncrasies of language rules seem to linger in my brain much longer when they’re tied to real-life events and examples like yours.

    Thank You! *wink*

    Reply

  11. The English language is so challenging sometimes.

    I never realized how challenging until I started homeschooling my boys. 😅

    Maybe I’ll make this post part of their curriculum! 😉

    Reply

  12. gotta say i Fall into the category of capitalizing Seasons incorrectly. thank you for the tips and hopefully i can improve my writing skills 🙂

    Reply

  16. This is really informative… thank you for posting. My son and I are working on knowing lower case letters and this was a fun read.

    Reply

  23. I am guilty of texting in lower case. I love these examples. As Matt said, the examples are easy to remember. Thank you for this post. I think as we get older, we tend to become sloppy.

    Reply

    1. Most people seem to text in lower case! My kids make fun of me for using proper case and punctuation when I text. 😃

      Reply

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