5 ms·

I think you're being overly harsh on this when it comes to informal communication. As others pointed out, capitalization is similar to white space, punctuation

by csydas 4y ago

I think you're being overly harsh on this when it comes to informal communication. As others pointed out, capitalization is similar to white space, punctuation, and other tools that English has when it comes to informal communication. Especially online, you can invoke a lot of imagery and thoughts and emotions by simply playing with the rules of English in a live-chat setting. Try to imagine in a chat the following sentence with different stylizations: "The Customer is always right, so we need to work to correct this" "thE CUsTomer iS aLWays RIght, So WE neEd To WoRK To cOrrECT thiS" "the customer is always right, so we need to work to correct this :))))" The first is quite formal and it's direct; perhaps it could be understood as sarcasm if someone knows you well, but it could also be taken at face value and quite seriously, or it could be taken as a throw-away statement. The second indicates a mocking tone and maybe even resentment, taking the time to mimic a meme and also to purposefully make the sentence silly looking. The third introduces the sarcastic smiley (I disagree with the article's interpretation, as I've always seen :))) to more represent desperation or exasperation) With traditional rules of English, tone is difficult to convey with a single sentence and it's built with the surrounding text as a point of consideration to understand how to interpret a statement; with chat, this is far more difficult to communicate the emotion/intention as chats can be very fast and disconnected, and it's hard to follow the attitude and mood of a person to understand their intended messaging. You could try to divorce the message from the emotions, which might lead to expediting some discussions, but it also leaves a lot of room for incorrect/wrong interpretations. Even if you divorce yourself from such concerns and try to be above it, your conversation partners might not approach it the same way. The evolution of chat might be bastardizing the classic rules of English, but it's quite expressive and personally has made many conversations and relationships much easier with fewer misunderstandings.

flumpcakes 4y ago
I work with a lot of people from abroad, where English isn't their first language. I also have a lot of friends who are foreign too. Trying to read into the "tone" is pointless. Simple sentences, with punctuation and grammar goes a long way. A benefit of not having tone imbued as some intangible quality of how a sentence is written down makes it very easy to communicate with them. If they are pissed off, they just say it. If they are not liking a project at work, they just say it. If you want them to do something, you just say it. These "gen-Z" rules are great if you are 15 and have nothing more to do with your time than worry if Emily fancies you or not by how many chins she gave her ascii text art smile. I was there: when I was a teenager on IRC and MSN messenger I was on hooks at the smallest detail; how long was it taking someone to reply, have they received the message, oh-no they're replying now I better not type out a message, they signed off "ilyvm" not "ily" they must have really liked me today... This sounds quite dismissive, and it is in a way. "Old" people don't need to understand the difference between "k" and "k.". Gen-Z need to communicate to their audience and there's nothing more embarrassing than old people learning young people lingo.
- csydas 4y ago
  I work with the exact same setup and demographics across the globe, from Eastern Europe to China to India to Japan to the US to South America. These aren't US specific Gen-Z rules, these are quite global. This is happening far outside the scope you're limiting it to, and it matters.
  - flumpcakes 4y ago
    I'm not sure what you are saying here, do people at your work write/communicate like Gen-Zers? Does Amber in HR get offended at your sharpness if you finish your sentence with a full stop? > These aren't US specific Gen-Z rules, these are quite global. These rules are specifically about English, and a younger generation. It's not as global as you think.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > This is happening far outside the scope you're limiting it to, and it matters Do you mean that you usually interact at work with people than cannot properly capitalize sentences, like we learned to do in primary school in practically any language that uses the Latin alphabet? I capitalize English because capitalization in my language (and any other language I can write) follows the same exact rules. It is a rule, it doesn't take much, capitalizing sentences at best proves that people know the basic grammar rules of the language and know when and how to use them, nothing more. Not doing it proves that people either don't care or don't know the basic rules of the language, which says a lot more than doing it properly.
    - jklm 4y ago
      I think you hit the nail on the head - at a certain point caring about every single rule isn’t effective or is actually net less effective. On HN I’ll use correct punctuation, grammar, and a wider set of vocabulary because there’s a good chance my message will come across more clearly. For general emails, I’ll write with simpler language because it’s very much a get-in-get-out activity especially with more senior stakeholders. For work comms, what’s the value in typing HN-style? Everyone already knows everyone else is smart. I believe communicating tone is more valuable than perfect punctuation and grammar, which make it much harder to get that across. Or as my grandma used to say - you don’t treat people you want to be treated, you treat them the way they want to be treated.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> Especially online, you can invoke a lot of imagery and thoughts and emotions by simply playing with the rules of English in a live-chat setting how about simply taking the sentences at face value? "We need to improve on XXX" Almost certainly means exactly what it says, no need to look for hidden emotions where most probably there are none. We as humans have used written communication for millennia and no emotion got lost when they needed to be conveyed.

by csydas 4y ago

flumpcakes 4y ago

I work with a lot of people from abroad, where English isn't their first language. I also have a lot of friends who are foreign too. Trying to read into the "tone" is pointless. Simple sentences, with punctuation and grammar goes a long way. A benefit of not having tone imbued as some intangible quality of how a sentence is written down makes it very easy to communicate with them. If they are pissed off, they just say it. If they are not liking a project at work, they just say it. If you want them to do something, you just say it. These "gen-Z" rules are great if you are 15 and have nothing more to do with your time than worry if Emily fancies you or not by how many chins she gave her ascii text art smile. I was there: when I was a teenager on IRC and MSN messenger I was on hooks at the smallest detail; how long was it taking someone to reply, have they received the message, oh-no they're replying now I better not type out a message, they signed off "ilyvm" not "ily" they must have really liked me today... This sounds quite dismissive, and it is in a way. "Old" people don't need to understand the difference between "k" and "k.". Gen-Z need to communicate to their audience and there's nothing more embarrassing than old people learning young people lingo.

csydas 4y ago
I work with the exact same setup and demographics across the globe, from Eastern Europe to China to India to Japan to the US to South America. These aren't US specific Gen-Z rules, these are quite global. This is happening far outside the scope you're limiting it to, and it matters.
- flumpcakes 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you are saying here, do people at your work write/communicate like Gen-Zers? Does Amber in HR get offended at your sharpness if you finish your sentence with a full stop? > These aren't US specific Gen-Z rules, these are quite global. These rules are specifically about English, and a younger generation. It's not as global as you think.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > This is happening far outside the scope you're limiting it to, and it matters Do you mean that you usually interact at work with people than cannot properly capitalize sentences, like we learned to do in primary school in practically any language that uses the Latin alphabet? I capitalize English because capitalization in my language (and any other language I can write) follows the same exact rules. It is a rule, it doesn't take much, capitalizing sentences at best proves that people know the basic grammar rules of the language and know when and how to use them, nothing more. Not doing it proves that people either don't care or don't know the basic rules of the language, which says a lot more than doing it properly.
  - jklm 4y ago
    I think you hit the nail on the head - at a certain point caring about every single rule isn’t effective or is actually net less effective. On HN I’ll use correct punctuation, grammar, and a wider set of vocabulary because there’s a good chance my message will come across more clearly. For general emails, I’ll write with simpler language because it’s very much a get-in-get-out activity especially with more senior stakeholders. For work comms, what’s the value in typing HN-style? Everyone already knows everyone else is smart. I believe communicating tone is more valuable than perfect punctuation and grammar, which make it much harder to get that across. Or as my grandma used to say - you don’t treat people you want to be treated, you treat them the way they want to be treated.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

> Especially online, you can invoke a lot of imagery and thoughts and emotions by simply playing with the rules of English in a live-chat setting how about simply taking the sentences at face value? "We need to improve on XXX" Almost certainly means exactly what it says, no need to look for hidden emotions where most probably there are none. We as humans have used written communication for millennia and no emotion got lost when they needed to be conveyed.