NY Times Takes Potshot at iPhone’s “Camel Case”

1:56 am, November 30th, 2009, Pete Mortensen

The “On Language” column in the magazine of the New York Times is among the world’s truly transcendent experiences. Fussy, concerned, and talky, it never hesitates to let you know how its author really feels bout minor issues of language and typography that scarcely manage to raise an eyebrow in the general population.

Last week’s target? Apple and its love of the so-called “Camel Case,” a typographical habit in which upper-case letters are sCaTtereD in the miDDle of otherwise unsuspecting words. Yes, the iPhone is named as chief perpetrator:

Though proper nouns conventionally begin with a capital letter, Apple spells the device’s trademark with an initial lowercase i, followed by an uppercase P. Thus styled, the word has a hump in the middle. I could print it here to show you, but I refuse to allow my prose to be so disfigured.

What’s great about this column is that Apple loyalists such as myself are every bit as likely to be offended by the rendering “Iphone” as the NYT’s Caleb Crain would be by “iPhone.” What we have is a Classic Camel Case Conundrum. Personally, I’m strongly in favor of rendering a trademark as its holder writes it, particularly when doing so has the potential for comedy (here I’m thinking of “Aol”). But the truth of it is that I’m typographically incorrect, as the author is factually fudging. Our language has been corrupted by Apple’s success.

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Posted by Pete Mortensen in Opinions | Comment on this article

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Pete Mortensen is the communications lead for growth strategy firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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8 comments

When it comes to trademarks, typographically correct takes a back seat to trademark – something the New York Times should have realized over 11 years ago when the iMac began this Apple naming convention. The iPhone is far from the first. It was preceded by the iBook, iPod, a whole range of iPod lowercase-second-word models, iChat, iCal, iWork, iLife, and iTunes.

I can’t say whether iphone or IPhone looks worse, but iPhone definitely looks better than either – and is consistent with Apple’s registered trademark. Maybe the Cupertino fruit company should have one of its iLawyers contact people who abuse its trademarks….

Dan Knight, on November 30th, 2009 at 2:28 am

I find Apple’s marks of this sort pretty obnoxious, but it’s not nearly as bad as the more recent tendency for capitalising an entire name.

Craig Grannell, on November 30th, 2009 at 5:36 am

Really? Who reads that drivel… This is what passes for a column these days? The marriages of two letters? That’s neither funny nor clever. It’s beyond absurd. I am actually offended this guy makes money (and probably a lot of it) , the current economy not withstanding…

As an Apple Fanboys I do get upset when people refer to the iPhone as Iphone… I don’t care about the reasons why the i is lower case, followed by the capital letter P, but care about exactness. If it was called the ipOne, then type is as such. It’s important to spell things correctly, especially to the company, who obviously didn’t just accidentally capitalize some random letter in the name…

WS, on November 30th, 2009 at 7:40 am

Hey, I get offend by the American use of the word football to describe a game that features very little contact between foot and ball, but I don’t bleat about in a column in the NY Times. No ones gives a toss what I think, nor should anyone else care what this guys thinks. Get over it and go put your energy into something more important.

Fen Tiger, on November 30th, 2009 at 8:36 am

I agree it’s a great column. And I also agree that the iPhone should be written as the iPhone. Not because Apple decided, but because it makes sense. Just as Apple does not throw features into its products merely for the sake of adding features, it isn’t using camel case merely for the sake of using camel case. The lower case ‘i’ in front of phone with an upper case ‘P’ actually work to convey the essence of what the product is.

Joseph, on November 30th, 2009 at 9:59 am

with trademarks, the company can do what it wants. and Apple may have picked that seemingly odd mark to distinguish the Apple iPhone (as well as keeping the mark in the company trend of iMac, iBook etc) from the Cysco Iphone.

But I am offended by the digs on personal names. I wonder if Caleb is aware that English and Irish surnames derived in part from the reference of someone as ’son of someone’ so Ian McEwan actually means ‘Ian son of Ewan’, which is why Ewan is capitalized to honor that history. NOT because the speller is an idiot as he implies.

Charli, on November 30th, 2009 at 12:44 pm

iDon’t care what he thinks. iN fact i’Ll go out of my way to do iT just iN case he happens upon iT. iT’s worth iT.

macaddicted, on November 30th, 2009 at 5:32 pm

Reading all these comments, i(…) find it funny nobody mentions the “i” being used in lowercase is just plain more *readable* since a capital I looks like a lowercase l… i Use this all the time in designing things. And incorrect as it is, it’s creeping up everywhere legibility is an issue, like in song-titles in playlists and in programming. People Camel-Cap all over the place get used to it. (Love the terminology though, thanKs for that!