7 ms·

I find this odd because, to me, attributing malice because of the presence of a period is something you do in your own mind. You don't know the emotional state

I find this odd because, to me, attributing malice because of the presence of a period is something you do in your own mind. You don't know the emotional state of the person who sent it, so you think of the worst possible outcome, but both are equally likely in the moment. You're just as free to give them the benefit of the doubt.

musingsole 6y ago
It's something people do in their own minds because experience generally proves out most people only use a period in a single statement message if they're emphasizing firmness. Those who do use the period and don't mean firmness are a minority and are generally demonstrating they aren't accustomed to chatting in text (or potentially have always been talking from a position of authority, so no one's mentioned how they're coming off).
- iamdbtoo 6y ago
  I don't agree that putting a period in casual textual communication is inherently hostile. I also don't agree that those who do are just simply unaware of the chaos they are causing. At the end, though, you're still making a judgement about someone with very little information and you have a choice not to do that.
  - saurik 6y ago
    https://newrepublic.com/article/115726/period-our-simplest-punctuation-mark-has-become-sign-anger https://newrepublic.com/article/115726/period-our-simplest-p...
  - soggybutter 6y ago
    You're right and I do try not to do that. But as someone who's used text based communication every day for more than half my life, there's definitely some unconscious bias I've developed towards specific behaviors that I don't think is random. I've talked to plenty of folks who feel the same, and there are a lot of memes out there that support it. At the end of the day, it's up to you as the communicator to try and convey what you really mean, and text is notoriously easy to misunderstand.
    - iamdbtoo 6y ago
      I know it's a thing and I have felt it myself in the past. What I really have trouble with is that we all admit it's most likely a faulty interpretation, but we still expect the other person to manage it for us. If everyone gave each other the benefit of the doubt more, none of this would be necessary.
  - solidasparagus 6y ago
    > I don't agree that putting a period in casual textual communication is inherently hostile In communication, your opinion of how something will be interpreted is far less important than opinions of the people doing the interpretation. You can stand firm in believing that adding the period doesn't make your message more hostile, but that won't change how your readers feel.
- Bedon292 6y ago
  I have been chatting via text, as a major form of communication, for more than 20 years and at least 2/3s of my life. Before this thread, I have never even contemplated a period having any meaning more than the end of a though. And I certainly had no position of authority, so that didn't affect anything. I am really curious how this evolved, and how I missed it being something people think. My biases tend to lean towards viewing people who don't use punctuation and capitalization as being less professional. I couldn't care less in something like a random chat in discord. But for Slack, as a work tool, I prefer to stay "professional". I wonder what other seemingly unspoken biases are out there? Especially in a time where we are spending much more time in text instead of in person.
  - musingsole 6y ago
    It's not a new or unknown convention/perception (as shown by the article posted here discussing the pissed period in 2013). I can't tell you why you would've been unaware of it, and I certainly wouldn't want to offend by guessing! :P A lot of it has to be context. If I'm talking to someone new, I'm going to try very hard to read very little into the text they've sent me. If it's a message from my partner -- yeah, every aspect of that message can communicate something to me. And in that latter case, a period on a short statement is a warning sign equivalent to passive-aggressive "I'm fine." Another thought is it literally changes how I read a sentence. Considering "I'm fine." vs "I'm fine" vs "I'm fine...", the first ends abruptly and is cut off. The second ends more gently and naturally. And the last trails off implying...something depending on the person and context. Consider poetry. No punctuation, a comma, a dash, a semi-colon, or a period each imply a type of pause (or lack of pause) at that moment in the words. And in poetry, that can mean everything.
    - Bedon292 6y ago
      I am really curious just how common this is. I know that article existed in 2013, but how many people read it and agreed with it? If you produced a large survey across a broad age range and diverse set of background, how common is this? The fact that I have never come across this before today makes me feel biased towards it being rare. But the very existence of this thread seems to indicate it is relatively common. I know another person in this thread mentioned a study about short (one word) responses being interpreted differently based on punctuation, or lack thereof. But that doesn't appear to have studied full sentences with or without. With your example, I am basically blind to the existence of the period. So "I'm fine." vs "I'm fine" are identical in my interpretation. Or at least they were before today. The ellipsis does register as a trailing thought, and I definitely read meaning into that. To me, a sentence should normally end in a period. However, due to the informality of chat, it is acceptable to leave off in the final sentence of a message. It being there vs not being there has never conveyed a meaning to me. I really would like to know how many things people were meaning, which I missed because of this. Or if people are interpreting my inclusion of standard punctation, with no meaning, as something more.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tobr 6y ago
You can apply the same reasoning to any of the myriad ways we pick up social, emotional clues from people around us. Facial expressions, body language, brevity, melody, choice of words, clothing, typography, use of emojis, and so on. All of these things are nuanced, vibrant, easily misjudged hints of what another person is feeling, how they see you, or how much they care. You can’t really choose freely how to interpret them, you just do, and sometimes you’re bound to get it wrong.
- iamdbtoo 6y ago
  How you intepret those is absolutely a choice. If you do not have enough information to know 100% what the intention of the other person is, then wherever you land is a decision. If it's that the person is angry, that's your choice the same if you believe the person is not angry.
  - adjkant 6y ago
    > If you do not have enough information to know 100% what the intention of the other person is That's the thing - you almost never do. > How you interpret those is absolutely a choice The crux of the problem here is putting that choice on the reader instead of leaving them without one. Communicating emotion in text solves this issue of interpretation.
  - MauranKilom 6y ago
    That is entirely true, and I personally try to be very open-minded about how a particular message could have been meant. But you do have to make some decision regarding the interpretation (preferably the most favorable one) in order to compose an adequate reply. And that's where things get difficult - at least in non-interactive environments. I've become very wary of the thousands of slight misinterpretations that my email messages might allow, and tend to rewrite most sentences once or twice to make the wording as unmistakable as possible (usually in a cycle of "how could this sentence be interpreted uncharitably?" -> fix it up). With increasing daily email volumes I've had to tone that practice down (at least for less delicate messages) to get anything done at all. But you never really know how something was perceived unless it went really wrong.
Aeolun 6y ago
Maybe, but if I put a period at the end of a single short message you better believe it’s malicious or I want you to shut up.
bccdee 6y ago
ATTRIBUTING ANGER TO ME JUST BECAUSE I'M WRITING IN ALL CAPS IS SOMETHING YOU'RE DOING IN YOUR HEAD, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN I SHOULDN'T TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE FACT THAT MY WRITING THIS WAY WILL PROVOKE THAT REACTION FROM OTHERS.

musingsole 6y ago

It's something people do in their own minds because experience generally proves out most people only use a period in a single statement message if they're emphasizing firmness. Those who do use the period and don't mean firmness are a minority and are generally demonstrating they aren't accustomed to chatting in text (or potentially have always been talking from a position of authority, so no one's mentioned how they're coming off).

iamdbtoo 6y ago
I don't agree that putting a period in casual textual communication is inherently hostile. I also don't agree that those who do are just simply unaware of the chaos they are causing. At the end, though, you're still making a judgement about someone with very little information and you have a choice not to do that.
- saurik 6y ago
  https://newrepublic.com/article/115726/period-our-simplest-punctuation-mark-has-become-sign-anger https://newrepublic.com/article/115726/period-our-simplest-p...
- soggybutter 6y ago
  You're right and I do try not to do that. But as someone who's used text based communication every day for more than half my life, there's definitely some unconscious bias I've developed towards specific behaviors that I don't think is random. I've talked to plenty of folks who feel the same, and there are a lot of memes out there that support it. At the end of the day, it's up to you as the communicator to try and convey what you really mean, and text is notoriously easy to misunderstand.
  - iamdbtoo 6y ago
    I know it's a thing and I have felt it myself in the past. What I really have trouble with is that we all admit it's most likely a faulty interpretation, but we still expect the other person to manage it for us. If everyone gave each other the benefit of the doubt more, none of this would be necessary.
- solidasparagus 6y ago
  > I don't agree that putting a period in casual textual communication is inherently hostile In communication, your opinion of how something will be interpreted is far less important than opinions of the people doing the interpretation. You can stand firm in believing that adding the period doesn't make your message more hostile, but that won't change how your readers feel.
Bedon292 6y ago
I have been chatting via text, as a major form of communication, for more than 20 years and at least 2/3s of my life. Before this thread, I have never even contemplated a period having any meaning more than the end of a though. And I certainly had no position of authority, so that didn't affect anything. I am really curious how this evolved, and how I missed it being something people think. My biases tend to lean towards viewing people who don't use punctuation and capitalization as being less professional. I couldn't care less in something like a random chat in discord. But for Slack, as a work tool, I prefer to stay "professional". I wonder what other seemingly unspoken biases are out there? Especially in a time where we are spending much more time in text instead of in person.
- musingsole 6y ago
  It's not a new or unknown convention/perception (as shown by the article posted here discussing the pissed period in 2013). I can't tell you why you would've been unaware of it, and I certainly wouldn't want to offend by guessing! :P A lot of it has to be context. If I'm talking to someone new, I'm going to try very hard to read very little into the text they've sent me. If it's a message from my partner -- yeah, every aspect of that message can communicate something to me. And in that latter case, a period on a short statement is a warning sign equivalent to passive-aggressive "I'm fine." Another thought is it literally changes how I read a sentence. Considering "I'm fine." vs "I'm fine" vs "I'm fine...", the first ends abruptly and is cut off. The second ends more gently and naturally. And the last trails off implying...something depending on the person and context. Consider poetry. No punctuation, a comma, a dash, a semi-colon, or a period each imply a type of pause (or lack of pause) at that moment in the words. And in poetry, that can mean everything.
  - Bedon292 6y ago
    I am really curious just how common this is. I know that article existed in 2013, but how many people read it and agreed with it? If you produced a large survey across a broad age range and diverse set of background, how common is this? The fact that I have never come across this before today makes me feel biased towards it being rare. But the very existence of this thread seems to indicate it is relatively common. I know another person in this thread mentioned a study about short (one word) responses being interpreted differently based on punctuation, or lack thereof. But that doesn't appear to have studied full sentences with or without. With your example, I am basically blind to the existence of the period. So "I'm fine." vs "I'm fine" are identical in my interpretation. Or at least they were before today. The ellipsis does register as a trailing thought, and I definitely read meaning into that. To me, a sentence should normally end in a period. However, due to the informality of chat, it is acceptable to leave off in the final sentence of a message. It being there vs not being there has never conveyed a meaning to me. I really would like to know how many things people were meaning, which I missed because of this. Or if people are interpreting my inclusion of standard punctation, with no meaning, as something more.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

tobr 6y ago

You can apply the same reasoning to any of the myriad ways we pick up social, emotional clues from people around us. Facial expressions, body language, brevity, melody, choice of words, clothing, typography, use of emojis, and so on. All of these things are nuanced, vibrant, easily misjudged hints of what another person is feeling, how they see you, or how much they care. You can’t really choose freely how to interpret them, you just do, and sometimes you’re bound to get it wrong.

iamdbtoo 6y ago
How you intepret those is absolutely a choice. If you do not have enough information to know 100% what the intention of the other person is, then wherever you land is a decision. If it's that the person is angry, that's your choice the same if you believe the person is not angry.
- adjkant 6y ago
  > If you do not have enough information to know 100% what the intention of the other person is That's the thing - you almost never do. > How you interpret those is absolutely a choice The crux of the problem here is putting that choice on the reader instead of leaving them without one. Communicating emotion in text solves this issue of interpretation.
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  That is entirely true, and I personally try to be very open-minded about how a particular message could have been meant. But you do have to make some decision regarding the interpretation (preferably the most favorable one) in order to compose an adequate reply. And that's where things get difficult - at least in non-interactive environments. I've become very wary of the thousands of slight misinterpretations that my email messages might allow, and tend to rewrite most sentences once or twice to make the wording as unmistakable as possible (usually in a cycle of "how could this sentence be interpreted uncharitably?" -> fix it up). With increasing daily email volumes I've had to tone that practice down (at least for less delicate messages) to get anything done at all. But you never really know how something was perceived unless it went really wrong.

Aeolun 6y ago

Maybe, but if I put a period at the end of a single short message you better believe it’s malicious or I want you to shut up.

bccdee 6y ago

ATTRIBUTING ANGER TO ME JUST BECAUSE I'M WRITING IN ALL CAPS IS SOMETHING YOU'RE DOING IN YOUR HEAD, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN I SHOULDN'T TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE FACT THAT MY WRITING THIS WAY WILL PROVOKE THAT REACTION FROM OTHERS.