Keywords are a helpful tool, I admit I default to them mentally pretty hard due to my education/career. There is also no reason that they cannot be inserted into natural language.
I agree. The reason to capitalize the first letter in a keyword (if you're going to do that - I mostly like it, but I'm not saying that it's the only way) is to point out
within natural language that it is, in fact, a keyword.
This is why, in my earlier post, I say that you can say, "You are Blinded and Deafened" (and you Don't NEED to use the word "Conditions" at that point, precisely because you've capitalized those keywords, and they're conditions. There's no way to confuse them for anything else.
This is, of course, assuming that you don't use the same word for two different Game Elements. 2024's "Poisoned condition" and "Poison" damage come close to the line on that score (though I would argue don't really cross it, thought I've certainly seen games where players have worried that they've taken the Poisoned condition when they've taken Poison damage, so... it's close enough to the line that it might have been better to have found a way to avoid it.
Personally, I'd have made a "Sickened" condition, which Poison damage might sometimes also come with, and other things, could also grant. Heck, psychic damage could sometimes cause "Sickened"...
At any rate, there's a ton of ways that a lot of game elements could be made one way or another. They're just choices, and even when I don't agree with the ones the designers have made, it's usually no where near the "deal breaker" end. Just a "would have been nice..." thing.