Re: [Groff] Proper Small Caps.

[Doug McIlroy]

> Thought it might be of interest given troff's
> long-time S\s-2MALL\s0 C\s-2APS\s0, especially used in the formatting of
> Unix.  IIRC, Dennis Ritchie said they did it because the CAT gave them
> the possibility, but it was regretted for the UNIX/Unix confusion it
> caused.

I think this is urban legend. Small caps were not used in UNIX
manuals or in the Bell System Technical Journal articles about
UNIX. Fairly early on, we in the Unix lab began to treat Unix
as a proper noun, but the lawyers had trademarked the uppercase
name and got their way in many publications, including the books
by Kernighan and Ritchie and Kernighan and Pike. U\s-2NIX\s0
was very rare, if it ever happened at all.

I recoil from text infected with capital pox, and don't see
small caps as much improvement. They do make sense in all-caps
text, but sporadic S\s-2MALL\s0 C\s-2APS\s0 or anything like
it is not a cure for the pox.

Doug