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Happy International Caps Lock Day

Intended to mock those who unnecessarily capitalise letters, words and phrases. The day became so popular with internet users that it is now celebrated twice a year—on June 28 and on October 22.

It’s the 22nd of October and those who spend a lot of time on the internet know exactly what that means. IT’S INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY.

International Caps Lock Day is observed twice a year, once today on the 22nd of October, and also on June the 28th. The latter date was added by the day’s original creator in memory of the American pitchman Billy Mays, otherwise referred to as ‘the infomercial king’.

Fans of uppercase letters thoroughly enjoy International Caps Lock Day as an opportunity to give the caps lock key the attention they feel it deserves. Others tend to find the day tedious, finding the overuse of capital letters all over social media, and sometimes even in correspondence at work, to be silly and unnecessary.

Whatever your opinion on International Caps Lock Day, there’s no denying the history of one of the most notorious buttons on the keyboard is pretty interesting, as is the history of the day itself.

The history of the caps lock key

The caps lock key originated in mechanical typewriters, in the form of a shift lock key. The idea to allow users of the typewriter to insert upper case letters without compromising on a smaller size of the keyboard was an early innovation that meant the inclusion of more capital letters was easier than ever before.

The shift lock key caused a far more dramatic keyboard innovation than the modern caps lock key, however, as it meant that the entire keyboard shifted over as different type bars moved next to the ink ribbon. After the advent of the computer keyboard, there was still quite a lot to learn, with early computers such as the Commodore 64 with no caps lock key to be seen.

International Caps Lock Day

Today, caps lock is something keyboard users will employ without even thinking about it, which perhaps causes an under-appreciation of our common use of capital letters and the technological journey it took to get here.

The inventor of International Caps Lock Day, Derek Arnold, certainly thinks so. He put forward the concept for the parodic holiday date back in 2000 on the website Metafilter. He stated that ‘International Caps Lock Day is, in fact, a testament to the small-mindedness of certain Western individuals: the majority of the world’s population writes in scripts which have no concept of letter casing. Therefore it is advised to laugh at anyone who invokes this day as an excuse to dismiss local typographical conventions: they are simply making an ass out of themselves.’

Here at iFactory, we understand the importance of correct letter casing, even on International Caps Lock Day. All of our solutions for internet marketing Brisbane are written out perfectly and checked over repeatedly by our team. We’re one of Brisbane’s leading digital agencies and have been providing the ultimate service for web design in Brisbane and internet marketing Brisbane since 2004, making us one of Brisbane’s oldest and independent digital and creative agencies. Talk to us today to find out how we can get you noticed, without the need to dismiss local typographical conventions.

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