ok so around --- years ago, on the evening of the 4th of february 2006 i drunkenly made a bet with a friend.

i often tend to make bets, and more often than not lose them, when drunk, and apart from the 20 year time frame, this bet is looking like no exception. a bunch of us were out for dinner one night (pizza? not important...) and somehow we got on to the topic of writing and letters and i was babbling on about how capital letters were pointless and the advent of the internet, mobile phones, texting/messaging etc was only hastening their demise, and they'd eventually just disappear from lack of use*. then one thing lead to another, and someone (possibly me but i can't really remember) said "let's make a bet", so we did.

anyway, it's been ---- since the bet was made, and the number of days until i lose it (and owe her a case of wine) is now down to ---

now before people start calling me a crank, here's a few things i'd like to point out:

• most writing systems only have a single case
• the full stop already denotes the end of a sentence
• proper nouns can be understood/disambiguated via their context, just like they are for speech
• writing systems are not fixed, and the characters used to communicate can change over time (think the demise of cursive writing, and the now widespread use of emojis)

"i'm not writing the book of kells here, this is just a note to my boss to tell them i'm not gonna be coming in today..."

i still maintain that in texts, messages, chats, posts, tweets, emails, notes, logos, blogs, signage, designs etc, people are using capitals less and less, and even the way they're used today, i'd argue that capital letters are more akin to a form of emphasis, like bold or italic, or even a style, like a different type of font, rather that something necessary in and of itself for the meaning of the word to be properly conveyed. but given that when i wake up in --- days time, on the morning of the 4th of february 2026, capital letters will still be in use, i concede that i was obviously wrong about the time frame.

below is a pic of the bet that we scribbled down on a bit of paper than someone had, and there was another page where we signed it, as did several other mates as witnesses who all (correctly as it turns out) thought i was an idiot (and thanks to amanda for hanging onto it all these years!).

and fwiw this is the actual text of the bet in case our drunken handwriting is a little hard to read:

* one of my mates is convinced that apostrophes will die out, but he was smart enough not to make a bet about it.

more pointless stuff like this at the people's republic of couch.