[cryptonector]

If you fail to put a space before a colon when writing in French, what happens next? Do people point and laugh? You get disciplined? Or would French speakers accept this as a better way to use the colon character?

It looks like this rule is based on old typographic considerations. Much like the Spanish Royal Academy's rule that capitalized letters carry no accents (unlike the opposite French rule that capitalized letters do carry accents!), which stems from typewriters not having accented letters, so one would type a vowel, backspace, then an apostrophe to make an accented vowel, but for capitals there's not enough space so you couldn't and wouldn't overstrike them.

Users and language academies should distinguish typographic from non-typographic language rules, and typographic rules should be context-specific (well technology-specific, since technology is the context).

[shakow]

I don't know, what would happen in English if you didn't capitalize the days of the week? Do people point and laugh? You get disciplined? Or would English speakers accept this as a better way to write the days of the week?

No human language on Earth is in a position where it can laughs at others for their idiomatisms.

[wewtyflakes]

I do not think that was their point (to laugh at other languages), but rather, that there may be contemporary situations in which warrant rethinking the idioms of a language. As an aside, I do not think many people who speak english would even notice a lack of capitalization for the days of the week.

[rich_sasha]

> As an aside, I do not think many people who speak english would even notice a lack of

English

[cryptonector]

I've had colleagues who refuse to use capitals in most cases. And yet their writing is completely comprehensible.

[cryptonector]

In English most people wouldn't care. You're going to get in more trouble in French schools for this than in U.S. schools (I don't know about UK schools, or elsewhere in the Anglosphere). My impression is that European culture is a lot more sensitive to these things than U.S. culture.

[rich_sasha]

You'd certainly be corrected in the UK and would count as a regular spelling mistake.

[rich_sasha]

Is Esperanto clear of exceptions and illogicalisms?

[jheriko]

i never bother capitalising things. i was pulled up on it once, ever.

that person was wrong. :P