Cory Doctorow says: no more inCaps!

Cory Doctorow wants to stop using weirdly spelled brand names:

This year, I resolve to minimize my use of incaps when writing about commercial products and companies. An incap changes a word into a logo, and has no place in journalism or commentary — it’s branding activity that colonizes everyday communications. It’s free advertising.

So: “Iphone,” not “iPhone” and “Paypal,” not “PayPal.”

When I was blogging for Teleread (or is it: TeleRead?) I did the same. In fact, I may have even normalized my spelling of brand names back in the 1990s when I was an editor for c’t (marvel at the irony).

At some point I gave up the practice for reasons I cannot quite remember, but it may simply have been because iPhone is actually easier to read than Iphone, and once you give up the latter it becomes increasingly difficult to defend other instances of normalized capitalization.

Doctorow has got a list of exceptions that weaken the effect he’s after, but at least it will be him who determines which companies will get freebies and which won’t.

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