Navy Times, in an online article written by Sam Fellman on June 6, is reporting that Navy messages and other traffic that have used all capital letters will see the all caps go the way of the Dodo bird.
On May 8, the Navy’s personnel chief issued a policy directive likely unique
in the annals of naval messages that came before it — a bulletin that featured
lowercase letters.
THE U.S. NAVY WILL NO LONGER COMMUNICATE EXCLUSIVELY IN ALL CAPITAL
LETTERS. OFFICIAL COMMUNICATIONS AND ORDERS HAVE BEEN IN ALL CAPS SINCE 19TH CENTURY.
For sailors who find it hard to get through all-caps messages or think that
they READ LIKE YOU’RE BEING SHOUTED AT, your time has come: The Navy is shifting
to a new message-routing system that is cheaper and easier to operate and has
the side benefit of sending messages that are easier to read.
You can read the rest of the story at http://www.navytimes.com/article/20130606/NEWS04/306060010/ALL-CAPS-MESSAGES-no-more
According to the WSJ: Many Army orders are still issued in caps and officers from other services hope rest of Pentagon will follow the Navy’s lead.
New, cheaper Navy messaging system allows orders and messages to be sent with lowercase letters. According to the Navy the new Command and Control Office Information Exchange—or C2OIX in Navy Speak–will become operational in August and is supposed to save $15 million a year.
But not all Navy systems can process mixed cases. And officials say it won’t be until 2015 that all messaging systems will be able to use lowercase letters.
