It’s been this way for a long time. 20 years ago I was told I came off as angry in my texts. It took me a sec, but I figured out it’s bc i put periods at the end of the last sentence.
That sounds like a good plan. See you there
-vs-
That sounds like a good plan. See you there.
Uh, just in general, people tend to react horrifically to long messages, ‘walls of text’.
… even on discussion boards, like here on lemmy, or as a first intro message to someone on some kind of dating app/site.
I’ve been using the internet since the mid 90s.
It did not used to be like this.
People thought of messages as letters, like emails.
Now, a lot of people will get viscerally angry or disgusted in basically nearly any digital context if you send a message that’s longer than roughly double the original Twitter character limit.
Hooray for normalizing slogans and soundbites in lieu of actual discourse, hooray for kicking off the trend of destroying our collective capacity to read multiple paragraphs at a time, great job Dorsey.
Now you’ve got me wondering when tldr became a thing on the internet
The world is getting dumber by the day. It’s a period. It ends the sentence, you are a moron if that bothers you.
Wha kind of stupid shit is this? Full stops in texts is passive aggressive?
How is that even done?
And how is it construed as passive aggressive? What kind of fucking idiot thought this up?
I guess I’m a bit old-fashioned. I still put two spaces after a full stop.
But I digress. The question was about other unwritten rules of texting. Over the past year, it’s become frowned upon at my company (a multinational with around 130k employees) to use the default yellow emoticons. People are gently reminded to use the colour that most closely resembles their skin. This is for conversations over Teams and Slack.
😹
My mom uses the white smiley faces and I always feel like they are vaguely racist.
Two spaces as a convention is due to the monospaced fonts in typewriters.
If you aren’t using a monospaced font it’s typographically awkward.
Those would be emojis not emoticons.
I miss emoticons. I am so done with emojis.
As to the subject you posted about color, that is crazy.
I hadn’t heard of this before, but I think I can see how they’re getting there. With no punctuation, you have to infer the emotional detail from the context. If you add a period, it can be perceived as specifying that you’re using a flatter, less excited tone.
Compare:
Grandma’s coming this weekend
YayTo this:
Grandma’s coming this weekend
Yay.On top of that, these kids are used to using emoticons and such to indicate a variety of emotional shadings, rather than just an exclamation mark - so deliberately specifying the flattest, least interested emotional load could very well read as just waiting for the conversation to be over.
Man, that must suck to be so incredibly insecure that you project your need for constant validation on to, quite literally, the most innocuous thing.
Yeah, I also don’t think it’s only about the full stop. It’s not like they’re using semicolons.
This is a stupid rule and I will continue to ignore it.
This is a stupid rule and I do not use it. Sometimes I write something, add a period, and then decide not to write the next sentence. The period should not be interpreted as a secret message.
lol. Full stop.
I think it depends on the length of the message IMHO.
Anyone holding this view can get in the sea
Equally moronic as saying the letter “e” is passive aggressive
It’s not that EVERY full stop is passive aggressive, it’s about interpreting tone.
So for example, when I text my parents and say, “Thank you for the invite, we’d be happy to come over for dinner next Monday!” and my dad replies, “Great.” That looks passive aggressive.
He doesn’t mean it that way, tone interpretation from short texts just isn’t something he’s fluent in like those of us who’ve been texting (or IMing back before texts) most of our lives.
If he had said “Great” that would be fine, as would “Great!” But “Great.” is interpreted as sarcastic and/or passive aggressive.
The boomer triple period is even worse.
Thank you for the invite, we’d be happy to come over for dinner next Monday!
Great…
My dad does that a lot, and it’s so weird to me
If you interpret “Great.” as “passive aggressive”, you are nuts. It simply is correct grammar, something kids seem to be unaware of nowadays.
It simply is correct grammar, something kids seem to be unaware of nowadays.
What a boomer take. I could just as well say that the “kids” seem to be more aware of the use of punctuation in text messaging and the implied emotion they convey
The different context means it’s not a literary communication, but notation for casual speech.
More script or score than Strunk and White.
In that mode, punctuation is performative, and with a period after one word you should weigh heavily on a grim tone of voice, or perhaps sarcasm.
As an old fart and former editor, context is key: there are many modes of expression, and the rules vary.
I disagree with your entire take.
and my dad replies, “Great.” That looks passive aggressive
What about it makes it look passive aggressive? How would excluding punctuation make it not look passive aggressive?
It’s the explicit inclusion of period where ‘normally’ there wouldn’t be one. In texting or DMs it would normally be assumed that one-liners wouldn’t contain punctuation except to enhance effect, so the inclusion of the full stop is being read as a 😐 or exaggerated neutrality
It’s the explicit inclusion of period where ‘normally’ there wouldn’t be one.
But given the larger history of textual communication, full punctuation is normal. Texting isn’t charged per character so it’s not like there’s a benefit to leaving it out.
dude/ette
read some fukan poetry OK thanks
Leaving out unnecessary characters makes you type faster, that’s also why people write u instead of you sometimes
I don’t know anything about texting then. I would have been happy they responded.
What about it makes it look passive aggressive?
Good question!
As I explained later in the post, “Great.” looks like sarcasm. My brain interprets it as having a sarcastic tone, and thus being passive aggressive.
(I am not alone in this, hence the very thing we’re commenting on.)
How would excluding punctuation make it not look passive aggressive?
You might as well ask why tone of voice changes the way we interpret things. Written short-form communication has evolved cultural norms that some people understand better than others, just like spoken communication. Chalk my tone interpretation up to an adolescence spent on IRC.
My point is that the full stop being passive aggressive is contextual. None of my uses of it here are intended to portray passive aggression or sarcasm, and if I wanted to do that I would not only change my sentence length and structure, but also my vocabulary.
But of course these norms aren’t as readily understood as actual tone of voice, which is why things like “/s” can be useful.
First off, thanks for humoring me.
As I explained later in the post, “Great.” looks like sarcasm. My brain interprets it as having a sarcastic tone, and thus being passive aggressive. (I am not alone in this, hence the very thing we’re commenting on.)
I get that it’s a common interpretation amongst a demographic.
You might as well ask why tone of voice changes the way we interpret things
Eh, vocal changes carry actual physical changes in the sound waves which non-hearing-impaired persons can perceive, so I don’t quite think it’s an apt comparison. But I understand your intent in doing so.
But of course these norms aren’t as readily understood as actual tone of voice, which is why things like “/s” can be useful.
Precisely why it seems odd to me to interpret the use of the basic of punctuation whose literary meaning hasn’t ever carried an absence of express indicator of emotional intent to be negative.
Again, thanks for engaging with me on it, even though I still don’t get it.
I think it is because short form texts like IMs/SMS/irc are more like spoken language than written language. And if somebody talks to you and ends a sentence with “period”, the meaning/feeling of the sentence changes.
Yes. Correct. Accurate.
It also depends so much on context. My dad texting “Great.” in that text would be different than me texting my work friend:
Them: Paul called out again
Me: great.
Wow. What a good question.
Thanks.
In my mind, the full stop “sounds” like dropping the voice at the end, like you do at the end of a sentence.
And in speech, dropping the voice at the end of “Great” would sound sarcastic.Whereas an exclamation mark “sounds” high-pitched and excited.
And no punctuation is so normal in text that my mind “adds” the expected sign at the end, which after “Great” would be an exclamation mark.
It’s really hard to explain, I hope I’m making sense.
In what way is that passive agressive? That is so weird. I simply ignore tone on the internet or texts. There is not any. Just words. They said great it means great. That’s it.
And I have been sending messages most of my life, and it is a simple rule: there is no tone in texts or messages.
it’s about interpreting tone.
Kinda feels passive aggressive, idk man
That’s silly, and at the very least probably gonna cause unconscious bias to second language speakers, neurodivergent people & just anyone who doesn’t communicate via text as much as we do
That’s silly
I don’t know what to tell you, communication is complicated. A lot of this is subconscious.
and at the very least probably gonna cause unconscious bias to second language speakers, neurodivergent people & just anyone who doesn’t communicate via text as much as we do
I agree, which is why it’s important for us to understand context and to attempt to interpret what the other person says in the best light.
I didn’t think my dad was actually being sarcastic when he replied that way. His text conveyed a tone he didn’t intend, just like when my neurodivergent ass says something in a tone of voice harsher than I intend.
This is no different from spoken communication, except there we get additional clues about neurodivergence and/or linguistic familiarity.
I don’t think the issue is his fluency in interpreting tone but you’re just interpreting it differently. In this case you’re misinterpreting it since he didn’t mean to be passive aggressive
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Where periods?
You don’t have to use them
Just don’t go making stuff up about people’s intentions when they do
Imagine living in a world where people are triggered by full stops…
I’ve been ridiculed, though also praised, for my relative overuse of … ellipsis, to indicate a pause in speech, or like, a hanging concept, to be later expanded on.
Many people these days apparently just do not know how … what I understand as basic grammar and syntax … how that works.
Of course, that may have something to do with many teachers just literally teaching books by reading aloud or assigning the actual cliff notes summary, instead of the actual book.
Average adult US literacy levels are approximately that of a 5th grader.
Most people are very nearly functionally illiterate now, roughly 15% are at or below a 2nd grade level, so they actually are functionally illiterate.
“The punctuation was coming from inside the house”
Suck. My. Dick.
This is the way. Fuck passive aggressive. Be aggressive aggressive.
Nothing passive about that.
Ok.
Very active statement.
XD means you’re Polish.
Polska gurom
