Why would a librarian, presumably fairly knowledgeable in the language arts, use only lower-case letters in her name? Proper nouns should be captalized, should they not?

It's just become a shorthand signature for email based on two things

1. I am a bad typist, and type my name hundreds of times a day and it's quicker to not have to hunt down the shift key. Petty but still that's reason #1 I can do find-and-replace in word processing programs based on case, but not in the email editor I use.

2. Since it's obviously my name, I'm not worried people will confuse it for something that is not my name.

I'm more of a descriptive grammarian than a prescriptive one, at the end of the day, though I tend to go back through my writing and edit for other similar errors like lower case "i" and not using commas and periods. It's not a statement about anything, though I expect that the types of people who are put off by a lower case signature may find much else to dislike in my, um, creative grammar and spelling.

I suppose I am put off by lower case signatures, but don't fancy myself a "type", thank you, just somebody who doesn't understand the popularity of "cap-failure" and thinks it is pop, hipster type stuff. I suppose the type of folks who can't be bothered to capitalize their name or maybe think they are being humble or cool or something may take issue with that. At least I have logic and fact on my side, though, right?

I have logic and fact on my side, though, right?

You have hundreds of years of grammatical convention on your side, though proper noun capitalization standards in English don't extend much earlier than that. As for myself, I am neither humble nor cool. Feel free to email me if you'd like to chitchat more about this, or would like to describe the javascript error you are seeing.

Hundreds of years is plenty for me. I can't chitchat more now- how'd you get on the gmail beta train? I will send the javascript error in a sec.

Very well put letter, Jessamyn. And thanks for the other tips on your site, which I'm passing on to our team of bloggers/delegates who'll be attending.

i have to add that the informal nature of email, etc. makes it refreshing for me to ignore the normal conventions of grammar. i enjoy the fluidity of the keyboard more; i feel neither hip nor humble. rather, unfettered.

and, J, let me say i am glad you've got this blog going and are representin'!

Thanks!

Drawing on deep pools of fortitude and concentration I am going to resist commenting on a subject of obvious importance - capitalizing or not capitalizing one's name - and essay instead a frothy quip or two on the relatively trivial subject of "The Grownups'" view of blogs and bloggers.

jess, you go girl!

Mr. Jones is a pretty much simon pure example of the sort of person who figures that opinionating about the Great Issues of Our Time is something that should be left exclusively to those who have been carefully brought up and went to all of the Right Schools. Policy opinion is properly left to folks like himself, who've figured out how to make a living by being cocksure about nearly everything and getting quoted about it endlessly by their carefully cultivated fan clubs in the major newsrooms of the Legitimate Press.