![word art text to look like shouting word art text to look like shouting](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/wow-pop-art-comic-book-text-super-hero-wow-surprise-awe-message-comic-text-sound-effects-pop-art-style-vector-speech-bubble-word-142989503.jpg)
John Flavel, The Fountain of Life Opened, Or, A Display of Christ in His Essential and Mediatorial Glory (1671) devotes a chapter to "The Title Affixed to the Cross of Christ," which begins as follows: When cartoonists want to indicate shouting, they use boldface all caps, or enlarge the size of the words relative to the surrounding text, or both.įor centuries, authors have used all capitals for visibility or for emphasis. That's because, by cartoonist convention (or cartoonist folk wisdom), all caps lettering is simply more readable than uppercase/lowercase lettering.
![word art text to look like shouting word art text to look like shouting](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/march-madness-gold-art-march-madness-graffiti-art-yellow-gold-design-210115116.jpg)
For example, the vast majority of cartoons in daily newspapers ( Doonesbury, Pearls Before Swine, Candorville, Garfield, Mutts, etc.) present all of their dialogue in all caps-and yet few if any readers interpret the dialogue as nonstop shouting. Preliminarily, at least, it appears that Kirton is the debtor.Īcknowledging that all caps can mean shouting is a far cry from interpreting all caps as indicating shouting in every instance. It's a pity that neither Kirton (writing in England) nor Hamill (writing in Illinois) acknowledges the other author, because one of them owes the other a considerable debt. So if you're wondering, "When did italic formatting come to indicate shouting?" the answer is, no later than 1872. In the extracts given, with the exception of Tell's Address to the Alps, only those words printed in italics require the Shouting Style. But few selections will require the Shouting Style throughout. The Shouting Style is chiefly used in the utterance of those words and phrases which are employed in calling and commanding. Hamill, The Science of Elocution (1872), who uses italics rather than all caps to indicate the words to be shouted:
![word art text to look like shouting word art text to look like shouting](https://comps.gograph.com/conceptual-hand-writing-showing-keyword-business-photo-text-word-which-acts-as-the-key-to-a-code-concept-of-great-significance-speech-bubble-with-quotation-mark-megaphones-shouting-and-arguing_gg126347533.jpg)
Kirton's discussion of "Shouting Style" is strikingly similar to that of S. As examples note the following selections marked in CAPITAL letters as the appropriate place for shouting emphasis. This will be seldom needed throughout an entire piece, but whenever the words imply calling, or commanding, it will be in keeping with the words to employ it. If you think the answer is 'the internet', you are wrong, and may wish to visit the linked question or the link herein provided.Īs the poster's example from John Kirton, The Standard Speaker & Elocutionist (1880) indicates, writers have long been aware of the possibility of using all caps as a way of indicating shouting: "shouting" should be understood to be equivalent to anything described in Middle English as shouting (or words of similar meaning), or in Old English as hrépende, giillende, ceallende or similar. On the other hand, the convention is clearly present in later middle English, so there's a sort of boundary there. Is there a point during the history of the English language where all-caps formatting came into use to indicate shouting, or does this convention in writing predate even miniscule Old English? I know that post-runic Old English had capital letters, and that the first lines of works often were written in all caps, so I suspect that the formatting was not at that time intended to be interpreted as shouting, but I can't be sure. A question on the History stack discusses when all-caps formatting came to indicate shouting in digital text, the answer being that such formatting has been interpreted to indicate shouting long before the existence of digital media.