5 ms·

I have used the internet for 25 years and I learned that ending sentences with a period is/can be rude like two years ago. That surprised me a lot. But I never

I have used the internet for 25 years and I learned that ending sentences with a period is/can be rude like two years ago. That surprised me a lot. But I never used chat a lot. I think on Usenet etc., full sentences were the norm.

moron4hire 5y ago
It's not rude. It's something a bunch of trolls just made up. It never happened organically.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  It is. I've had a co-worker once call it "a full stop of hate", and it clicked with me immediately, and then every person to which I mentioned this phrase immediately know what I meant. I believe it did grow organically. So, in the version I know and that seems to be Internet universal, it applies to IM messaging only. You don't start sentences in uppercase, and a full stop at the end of a message is interpreted as strong, negative emphasis. Similarly, ending an IM message with ellipsis is expressing disappointment. It can be productively used if it's obvious that the disappointment is not with your interlocutor (e.g. "these politicians..."). I personally know a (non-tech-savvy, so not a nerd bias) person who walked up to her coworker and very sternly asked she stops sending her messages ending with ellipsis, because it reads as if she constantly had some grudge.
  - stronglikedan 5y ago
    It's not. Only a very small percentage (even a fraction maybe) of the people I communicate with have ever even mentioned it. It's like a thing that a few people are trying to make a thing even though it's not really a thing.
    - ehnto 5y ago
      No one is saying it's a universal law, but it's definitely a thing that happens, and it's down to the individuals. I know people who if they use a full stop it's intentional and it's to make sure I realise they're dead serious. I also have my partner, who puts a full stop on everything because that's correct grammar. This is a decades old phenomenon by the way, no one is "trying to make it a thing". This isn't a twitter hot topic, it's just a nuance of online communication that's been around since at least IRC's hey-days. Some people read into it, some don't.
    - blooalien 5y ago
      There's a sad small group of people who just want any excuse to be instantly offended at anyone and everyone about any little thing, and they're always makin' up weird stuff like this (or buyin' into some other small sad person's made up thing). I've come to realize the only options are to ignore them or call them out on it, depending on the given situation.
- jozvolskyef 5y ago
  From what I remember, sentiment analysis should reveal the cold and aggressive association to date at least to early 2000s ICQ communication in the Czech-speaking 7-15y/o cohort. The first time I can remember having to actively remind myself that people who grew up without internet use periods differently was about 2012.
  - blooalien 5y ago
    Even some of us who grew up with Internet still grew up in a time (and place) where some English teachers were "grammar nazis" and drilled punctuation, spelling, and grammar into us to the point of it becoming habit.
- graynk 5y ago
  As Gretchen McCulloch put it: the message bubble _is_ the full stop. It did happen organically, and it _is_ an alarming event when someone who usually doesn't use full stops in chat suddenly decides to use one. Tom Scott made a video on that [0], which references Gretchen's book - Because Internet [1] [0] https://youtu.be/fS4X1JfX6_Q https://youtu.be/fS4X1JfX6_Q [1] https://gretchenmcculloch.com/book/ https://gretchenmcculloch.com/book/
  - blooalien 5y ago
    I'm not really thrilled with that definition or line of thinking because it leads to a horrible habit that annoys me no end. The habit of using the sending of a single line of text in lieu of a "full stop" (period). This leads to thirty dingdingding notifications as the person sending seems to be incapable of putting a complete stream of thought into a proper paragraph with sentences in a single message. Just type out a complete thought before hitting "Send", please. I don't really want thirty related individual sentences arriving one after another separately.
    - graynk 5y ago
      > This leads to thirty dingdingding notifications I've disabled all notifications, save for blinking LED. So if I happen to look at my phone - I will see that there are some unread notifications, but other than that - no sounds, no vibrations, I don't need this distraction in my life. I've only enabled them for a couple of important contacts. Now I can even tell from whom the message is, just by the sound of the notification.
- leephillips 5y ago
  It’s the equivalent of pretending that the old, widely-understood “OK” sign has something to do with white supremacy. The idea is to see if you can get people to believe it, and enjoy the panic that results.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    What a ridiculous leap of logic. This is just an observation I've made about how people as individuals interpret things on the internet, intuited from a long history of chatting online. I'm not implying there is some rulebook for internet etiquette. Some people read into it, some people don't. Is it really so hard to imagine that? Some people think the power of your handshake says all there is to know about you, some people think smiling without showing your teeth is rude. Humans are weird, it's just a nuance of text chat some people write and read and some people don't.
petters 5y ago
Can I make full stops between sentences? This is a serious question.
- ehnto 5y ago
  It's really not that serious a topic but here's a serious answer anyway: you can have full stops anywhere you want, it's really up to the reader to not read into what you've written. Not everyone uses full stops that way and it mostly applies to chat anyway. I use full stops at the end of HN comments, but not at the end of instant messengers or chat rooms for example.

moron4hire 5y ago

It's not rude. It's something a bunch of trolls just made up. It never happened organically.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
It is. I've had a co-worker once call it "a full stop of hate", and it clicked with me immediately, and then every person to which I mentioned this phrase immediately know what I meant. I believe it did grow organically. So, in the version I know and that seems to be Internet universal, it applies to IM messaging only. You don't start sentences in uppercase, and a full stop at the end of a message is interpreted as strong, negative emphasis. Similarly, ending an IM message with ellipsis is expressing disappointment. It can be productively used if it's obvious that the disappointment is not with your interlocutor (e.g. "these politicians..."). I personally know a (non-tech-savvy, so not a nerd bias) person who walked up to her coworker and very sternly asked she stops sending her messages ending with ellipsis, because it reads as if she constantly had some grudge.
- stronglikedan 5y ago
  It's not. Only a very small percentage (even a fraction maybe) of the people I communicate with have ever even mentioned it. It's like a thing that a few people are trying to make a thing even though it's not really a thing.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    No one is saying it's a universal law, but it's definitely a thing that happens, and it's down to the individuals. I know people who if they use a full stop it's intentional and it's to make sure I realise they're dead serious. I also have my partner, who puts a full stop on everything because that's correct grammar. This is a decades old phenomenon by the way, no one is "trying to make it a thing". This isn't a twitter hot topic, it's just a nuance of online communication that's been around since at least IRC's hey-days. Some people read into it, some don't.
  - blooalien 5y ago
    There's a sad small group of people who just want any excuse to be instantly offended at anyone and everyone about any little thing, and they're always makin' up weird stuff like this (or buyin' into some other small sad person's made up thing). I've come to realize the only options are to ignore them or call them out on it, depending on the given situation.
jozvolskyef 5y ago
From what I remember, sentiment analysis should reveal the cold and aggressive association to date at least to early 2000s ICQ communication in the Czech-speaking 7-15y/o cohort. The first time I can remember having to actively remind myself that people who grew up without internet use periods differently was about 2012.
- blooalien 5y ago
  Even some of us who grew up with Internet still grew up in a time (and place) where some English teachers were "grammar nazis" and drilled punctuation, spelling, and grammar into us to the point of it becoming habit.
graynk 5y ago
As Gretchen McCulloch put it: the message bubble _is_ the full stop. It did happen organically, and it _is_ an alarming event when someone who usually doesn't use full stops in chat suddenly decides to use one. Tom Scott made a video on that [0], which references Gretchen's book - Because Internet [1] [0] https://youtu.be/fS4X1JfX6_Q https://youtu.be/fS4X1JfX6_Q [1] https://gretchenmcculloch.com/book/ https://gretchenmcculloch.com/book/
- blooalien 5y ago
  I'm not really thrilled with that definition or line of thinking because it leads to a horrible habit that annoys me no end. The habit of using the sending of a single line of text in lieu of a "full stop" (period). This leads to thirty dingdingding notifications as the person sending seems to be incapable of putting a complete stream of thought into a proper paragraph with sentences in a single message. Just type out a complete thought before hitting "Send", please. I don't really want thirty related individual sentences arriving one after another separately.
  - graynk 5y ago
    > This leads to thirty dingdingding notifications I've disabled all notifications, save for blinking LED. So if I happen to look at my phone - I will see that there are some unread notifications, but other than that - no sounds, no vibrations, I don't need this distraction in my life. I've only enabled them for a couple of important contacts. Now I can even tell from whom the message is, just by the sound of the notification.
leephillips 5y ago
It’s the equivalent of pretending that the old, widely-understood “OK” sign has something to do with white supremacy. The idea is to see if you can get people to believe it, and enjoy the panic that results.
- ehnto 5y ago
  What a ridiculous leap of logic. This is just an observation I've made about how people as individuals interpret things on the internet, intuited from a long history of chatting online. I'm not implying there is some rulebook for internet etiquette. Some people read into it, some people don't. Is it really so hard to imagine that? Some people think the power of your handshake says all there is to know about you, some people think smiling without showing your teeth is rude. Humans are weird, it's just a nuance of text chat some people write and read and some people don't.

petters 5y ago

Can I make full stops between sentences? This is a serious question.

ehnto 5y ago
It's really not that serious a topic but here's a serious answer anyway: you can have full stops anywhere you want, it's really up to the reader to not read into what you've written. Not everyone uses full stops that way and it mostly applies to chat anyway. I use full stops at the end of HN comments, but not at the end of instant messengers or chat rooms for example.