Together with
The Future. The sign you’ve entered adulthood may be that you start hitting the shift button after a period to capitalize the first letter in a new sentence. With top lexicographers saying that modern capitalization use is a sign of accurately recreating spoken speech (rather than a sign of laziness), smartphone manufacturers may start to include a capitalization preset for contacts so people can keep their writing lowercase with those they feel the most comfortable with.
Uppercase adulthood
One of the last adult milestones is using proper grammar.
- Millennials and Gen Zers turned off auto capitalization on their phones as teens but now feel they need to turn it back on as they try to land more elevated jobs.
- Many held out on turning it back on beforehand because lowercase letters made texts feel more casual and the tone of a conversation feel lighter — like using emojis and exclamation marks.
- But several young people told WSJ that their sudden capitalization use has friends asking why their texts feel so formal and cold now, so being correct has some modern consequences.
Maybe the tide’s turning to the lowercase life, though. Artists like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo routinely have all-lowercase song titles, Spotify uses lowercase for new playlists, and even Sam Altman, the billionaire CEO of OpenAI, still types all-lowercase tweets.
TOGETHER WITH CANVA
No design skills needed! 🪄✨
Canva Pro is the design software that makes design simple, convenient, and reliable. Create what you need in no time! Jam-packed with time-saving tools that make anyone look like a professional designer.