> Not to mention languages like German which capitalize way more than English.

And as everyone knows, Germans drive like crazy on their Autobahns, so they're clearly not the type of people who would willingly put speed bumps into their sentences. Therefore, capital letters don't work like speed bumps at all. My logic is bulletproof, case closed!

This myth may have been true 30 years ago, but if you go on any Autobahn today, you will find there's at most 5km, if at all, of unrestricted sections. Germany is famous for its forest of street signs and speed restrictions on roads are very popular with the administration. There's often config like UNRESTRICTED -> 100km/h -> 80km/h -> 60km/h -> 100km/h. Or the worst: 70km/h -> 100km/h for maybe 150 meters -> 70km/h again. Arguably the 100km/h section could be replaced with no signs aka still 70km/h. But, street signs are popular in Germany and sometimes I have the impression somebody gains by the number of signs posted. Yeah, so no unrestricted autobahns, really.

I've found it more relaxed to drive at a constant 120km/h in the Netherlands. No braking and accelerating all the time.

Not sure about this. I drove through Europe last year, including through several cities in Germany and encountered a lot of unrestricted autobahns. There are some areas where they gradually decrease the speed limit (often for roadworks) but I never came across any section for which the the speed limit was altered for, effectively, less than 8 seconds. As someone living in the UK, the missing presence of 40/50mph average speed regions for tens of miles was quite welcome.

There really aren't long stretches of unlimited road and frequent limit fluctuation is risky both from an accident and ticketing perspective. If you want to slow it down, keep it at 80km/h, but don't do a circus of jumping up/down.

Japan has a similar system. Thankfully, speed limits are rarely enforced on highways, and hidden cameras aren't allowed.

Yes, hidden cameras aren't used, but there are lots of speed cameras[1].

Second, although anecdotal: I don't drive that much in Japan (live in a part of Tokyo where cars are just a hindrance), but I make the 2+ hour drive to Shizuoka every few months. Every trip, I definitely see several people being pulled over for speeding.

Most people do seem to drive 30kph or more over the limit, though.

[1]: http://www.accessj.com/2013/05/automated-speed-cameras-in-ja...

I didn't know Japan had limitless highways.

They don't, and most japanese roads (including highways) have ridiculously low speed limits[0], but as rangibaby notes the speed limits are uncommonly enforced, nobody respects them

[0] default 60km/h[1] for undivided inter-urban roads though it's common to get a 50 or even 40km/h speed limits, the default highway speed limit is 100km/h[2] but it's commonly lower than that, and I've seen limits as low as 70km/h on highways, keep in mind that all highways are toll roads and they're expensive as hell (entry fee of ~¥200 plus ~¥25/km[3], Hokkaido has a special tourists rental ETC[4], Honshu does not)

[1] under 40mph

[2] 62mph

[3] ~¥40/mi

[4] from ¥1800/day for 2 days to ¥800/day for 2 weeks or more, unlimited travel. With regular ETC, going from Sapporo to its airport (New Chitose) is ¥1400.

But I've heard very good things about Japan's bullet trains, so I'd guess there's lees need for highways.

In Europe only France seems to have high speed train that actually goes at high speeds. German ICE is chugging along in first gear all the time except for short stretches but those are are very few and between.

I once took Cologne to Amsterdam with ICE and it took more than 3 hours, which defeats the point of a fast train.

JR built Shinkansen-only tracks that have their own stations and no level crossings, which means they are essentially going their full speed the entire journey.

Driving is still popular here.

A) It's fun, there is a lot of beautiful scenery to admire and highway service areas have restaurants where you can eat some local food or buy souvenirs from that area.

B) It's cheaper to go by car once you have four people, even with highway fees and gas (most journeys in Japan aren't that long in terms of actual distance traveled, and normal cars are legally mandated to have very good fuel efficiency).

TBH my favorite way to travel is by highway bus. They used to really suck, but have gotten better in the last five years or so because they have a lot of competition from high-speed rail and cheap airfares. You can travel comfortably in a big seat with free wifi and power outlets very cheaply, usually less than half of the equivalent Shinkansen ticket, in exchange for the journey taking a few hours more.

Interesting, because Japanese is stereotyped as a very rule-following culture. But maybe that applies to social rules, not legal rules.

I mean similar as a confusing amount of different speed limits on roads. You are way more likely to be stopped for speeding on normal (gratis) roads than highways.

Although 120km/h constant speed needs decent amount of variation of scenery if you don't want to fall asleep.

> And as everyone knows, Germans drive like crazy on their Autobahns

Not actually true. They may drive fast but in a really cultural and organized way while (mostly) respecting all the rules.

Clearly you haven't been in a car with my German grandfather.

When speed reading that is one technique to pick out sentence subject. They're not saying capitalization is an "issue", they're merely saying it causes more cognitive load so should be reserved for things that really do give the reader more information.

The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, usually called the AP Stylebook, is an English grammar style and usage guide created by American journalists working for or connected with the Associated Press over the last century to standardize mass communications. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP_Stylebook

I don't see a high degree of relevance of German grammar to a critique of the AP document [though I see it as more relevant than the rules of logosyllabbic languages such as Chinese]. Readers of German have different expectations than readers of American english and a standards document probably ought to take those differences into account because the goal of journalistic writing is to communicate to a particular audience.

The article says "as one marketing website put it", which suggests to me it's nothing but a justification of the recent design trend of making things flat, bland, and "featureless", for lack of a better word.

Capital letters make it easy to find proper nouns and sentences when scanning quickly. Their omission is why I find "IM speak" harder to read.

IM speak should be limited to short blocks of text. Ideally, you shouldn't be scanning it at all.

Ironically, while reading very quickly your comment, I clearly stopped on Germain because it was different than the rest of the words (capitalized) ;-)

When you speed read you pick up phrases and even whole sentences at once.

In a language that doesn't use capital letters so much, they stand out and whilst speed reading you do need to slow down a bit and figure out what's weird with the sentence being read. You can no longer just directly pick it up, you have to read it one notch slower and build it. This can be quite noticeable when speed reading. It happens with large words too. As you get used to certain capitalized words (names in a book, common large words, things like Internet) this speed bump decreases, but it's still there for people.

The Linguistics Journalism Award is a real thing. (Most recent winner announced here: http://www.linguisticsociety.org/news/2015/10/22/arika-okren...)

Kristen Hare is unlikely to win this year's prize.