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Jiro

Jiro

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U.S. Navy ditches its ALL CAPS message format - CNN.com
(CNN) -- Well, it seems the U.S. Navy finally got the memo: DON'T USE ALL CAPS! IT'S RUDE!

The Navy is switching to a new messaging system that's cheaper and more efficient.

And oh yeah, one that does away with a century-old practice: communications using all uppercase letters.

"Lowercase messages are here to stay; they provide a more readable format," a Navy news release said, citing James McCarty, the naval messaging program manager at U.S. Fleet Cyber Command.

The all-caps were a vestige of a bygone era.

Back in the 1850s, the teletype machines that the military used were made up of three rows of keys -- none of them lowercase letters.

Word of the change went out to all naval commands in April. But it didn't reach the rest of us until the news release this week.

In it, the Navy said it is ditching its in-house Defense Message System in favor of e-mail. One with a very apt acronym: NICE (Navy Interface for Command Email).

The switch will save the Navy $20 million a year. And it gets them caught up with current Internet protocol.

ALL CAPS READS LIKE YOU'RE BEING SHOUTED AT.

Old sea dogs may feel differently. But they have a couple of months to adjust.
The system won't fully be in place until next year.

Once it is, naval officers will no longer feel like they're being barked at.
Except, of course, in person by their superiors.
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by switching to lowercase letters will save Navy about $20 million a year? wow........ I didn't even think UPPERCASE LETTERS would take up that much space.

TESTING ONE TWO THREE
testing one two three
 
wow, didn't even know that and this makes me think of other people typing like these may make think they are from the navy or the army force. :lol:
 
Whoa OMG no WAY THIS IS TOTALLY RIDICULOUS... YOU MUST READ MY CAPS!
 
For about three years of my Naval Reserve service, I served as a Radioman, and yes, we typed all caps, and I used teletype equipment. Sometimes the headers on messages were longer than the actual messages. Formatting was very important. One wrong key and your message could end up in the wrong place and cause a disaster. Very stressful work.

It wasn't considered shouting in those days because there was no such thing as e-mail or texting. :lol:
 
JClarke said:
wow, didn't even know that and this makes me think of other people typing like these may make think they are from the navy or the army force. :lol:
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I have older Navy friends who can't break that habit. One of them, everything he types is uppercase. I explained to him what it means now but he won't change. :roll:
 
I think the cost has to do with maintaining older equipments. Older equipment always going to cost to fix or repair. Now with the cuts, they have no choice but to figure out how to reduce the cost. If there were no cuts, this would likely not going to happen.
 
Reba said:
I have older Navy friends who can't break that habit. One of them, everything he types is uppercase. I explained to him what it means now but he won't change. :roll:
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same here. we have a biker member who used to serve in Navy from Vietnam War, I think. he emails in ALL CAP..... txt message too. nothing we can do about it....
 
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