CamelCase is a writing method that combines two capitalized words without a space. It’s used for chemical formulas, proper names, computer programming, and advertising. It was invented by Berzelius in 1813 and is popular for product and company names.
CamelCase is a writing method that joins compound words without leaving a space between them. Both words are capitalized, which means that there is a capital letter at the beginning and in the middle of the combined words. Also known as camel-case or medial-case, this method is most often used to denote chemical formulas, but can also be used in proper names, computer programming languages, and advertising. It is called camelcase because the word resembles a two-humped camel when written.
The camelcase method of writing chemical formulas was invented by Berzelius in 1813. Berzelius, who was a Swedish chemist, felt it was easier to have chemical formulas written this way to illustrate compounds. For example, the periodic table symbol for sodium is Na and the symbol for chloride is Cl. When mixed as a sodium chloride compound, the symbol is written as NaCl.
Proper nouns are one way camelcase is used when writing. Seen more in surnames than given names, camelcase proper names are very common in Scotland and Ireland, but are also found in other countries around the world. Popular examples include DuPont, McCloud, MacLean, VanDyke and DiCaprio.
Computer programmers have used medial capitalization since the 1970s as a way to document common multi-word descriptions used in computer code. To make descriptions universally understood by various computer programming languages such as COBOL, Modula, PARC, and PostScript, programmers have adopted a similar naming convention. For example, instead of writing End of File, End_of_File, or End-of-File, programmers simply write EndofFile, which is much faster and doesn’t conflict with other programming rules for special characters.
Advertising is another area where camelcase spelling methods are popular. When marketing product or business brands, many owners choose the camelcase spelling. This is especially true in the electronics industry, as users were already comfortable with media capitals due to its use in computer programming languages. Examples include iPod, TiVo, eBay, BlackBerry, MySpace, YouTube and PayPal.
Some of the early adopters of media capitals were McDonald’s, BellSouth, MasterCard, TriStar Pictures, and ThinkPad. Whether it’s a company name or a product name, marketers have found that using medial capitalization makes it easier for consumers to remember their products. Some companies have even changed their names to reflect camelcase from other spellings. FedEx was Federal Express, PetSmart was PETsMART and RadioShack was Radio Shack.
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