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An article on this topic I like: Are Your Texts Passive-Aggressive? The Answer May Lie In Your Punctuation >"And we found consistently through many experiment

An article on this topic I like: Are Your Texts Passive-Aggressive? The Answer May Lie In Your Punctuation >"And we found consistently through many experiments that 'Yup' with a period resulted in responses that were more negative. So people thought 'Yup' with a period was less friendly, less sincere, and so on." >"I actually really don't like getting text messages that end in periods because it always feels so harsh and passive-aggressive," said Juan Abenante Rincon, 24, a social media manager for Adidas. "Like, are you mad? What's going on? Like, did I do something wrong?" https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/909969004/before-texting-your-kid-make-sure-to-double-check-your-punctuation https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/909969004/before-texting-your...

brightlancer 3y ago
>"I actually really don't like getting text messages that end in periods because it always feels so harsh and passive-aggressive," said Juan Abenante Rincon, 24, a social media manager for Adidas. "Like, are you mad? What's going on? Like, did I do something wrong?" What level of neuroticism is this? ¨In other words, enough to send a chill down anyone's spine.¨ I say again, what level of neuroticism is this? If folks are reading that much into a standard element of grammar, then maybe the grammar isn't the problem. ¨Klin said the entire debate demonstrates that language is constantly changing — and that's OK.¨ Language exists to communicate ideas; if a change makes things harder to communicate, it's a bad change. Change isn't inherently good. If hundreds of millions of people are using grammar one way (and have been for a long time), and some young adults come along and _misread_ that grammar, the worse course is to tell the 100s of millions to change their behavior.
- nroms 3y ago
  I have to agree with the parent that on an intuitive level a single-sentence text message ending in a period conveys something pretty strongly. It does a couple things to me: indicating finality, turning an informal comment into a formalized sentence, and just feeling unnecessary thus prompting analysis. furthermore from a grammar perspective most messages are not proper sentences e.g. "yup" or "on my way". In the end we have to adapt our writing to the context, and texting has much more tonal analysis put on fewer symbols —
skummetmaelk 3y ago
People ending their sentences in ellipses are the true passive aggressive ones... Single period is normal, surely.
- colpabar 3y ago
  I HATE ellipses and I really don't even understand the purpose. What are they supposed to signify? I know two people that use them constantly and it makes me feel like I said something dumb; like there is some response that is so obvious that I shouldn't have needed to say what I said. I know that isn't their intention, but that's just what my brain makes of the those three trailing periods... > Single period is normal, surely. This I understand. Ending a text with a period does make it seem more "serious". I would interpret "yup." to have an almost annoyed tone, and I think that's pretty common. I think it just comes from not needing to punctuate statements given that most texts are single sentences anyway. The end of the text implies the period, adding it implies more.
  - YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
    The purpose of the ellipsis is to punctuate sentence fragments, which, given that the typical Internet user couldn't tell you what a sentence fragment was if their life depended on it, explains why they're so frequently misused.
  - skummetmaelk 3y ago
    Interesting point about the period. I hadn't thought about it before and now I'll never be able to unsee it. To me ellipses really just are the passive aggressive marker > We can do that... We can do that, but it really shouldn't be necessary, or it's a really dumb thing to do, or I really just don't want to, or you should just do it yourself. There's always something negative implied that the author doesn't want to say outright. Then you have people who obviously don't use it like that, which makes it absolutely impossible to interpret their texts. At least if you are conditioned to interpreting it that way.
    - drdeca 3y ago

brightlancer 3y ago

>"I actually really don't like getting text messages that end in periods because it always feels so harsh and passive-aggressive," said Juan Abenante Rincon, 24, a social media manager for Adidas. "Like, are you mad? What's going on? Like, did I do something wrong?" What level of neuroticism is this? ¨In other words, enough to send a chill down anyone's spine.¨ I say again, what level of neuroticism is this? If folks are reading that much into a standard element of grammar, then maybe the grammar isn't the problem. ¨Klin said the entire debate demonstrates that language is constantly changing — and that's OK.¨ Language exists to communicate ideas; if a change makes things harder to communicate, it's a bad change. Change isn't inherently good. If hundreds of millions of people are using grammar one way (and have been for a long time), and some young adults come along and _misread_ that grammar, the worse course is to tell the 100s of millions to change their behavior.

nroms 3y ago
I have to agree with the parent that on an intuitive level a single-sentence text message ending in a period conveys something pretty strongly. It does a couple things to me: indicating finality, turning an informal comment into a formalized sentence, and just feeling unnecessary thus prompting analysis. furthermore from a grammar perspective most messages are not proper sentences e.g. "yup" or "on my way". In the end we have to adapt our writing to the context, and texting has much more tonal analysis put on fewer symbols —

skummetmaelk 3y ago

People ending their sentences in ellipses are the true passive aggressive ones... Single period is normal, surely.

colpabar 3y ago
I HATE ellipses and I really don't even understand the purpose. What are they supposed to signify? I know two people that use them constantly and it makes me feel like I said something dumb; like there is some response that is so obvious that I shouldn't have needed to say what I said. I know that isn't their intention, but that's just what my brain makes of the those three trailing periods... > Single period is normal, surely. This I understand. Ending a text with a period does make it seem more "serious". I would interpret "yup." to have an almost annoyed tone, and I think that's pretty common. I think it just comes from not needing to punctuate statements given that most texts are single sentences anyway. The end of the text implies the period, adding it implies more.
- YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
  The purpose of the ellipsis is to punctuate sentence fragments, which, given that the typical Internet user couldn't tell you what a sentence fragment was if their life depended on it, explains why they're so frequently misused.
- skummetmaelk 3y ago
  Interesting point about the period. I hadn't thought about it before and now I'll never be able to unsee it. To me ellipses really just are the passive aggressive marker > We can do that... We can do that, but it really shouldn't be necessary, or it's a really dumb thing to do, or I really just don't want to, or you should just do it yourself. There's always something negative implied that the author doesn't want to say outright. Then you have people who obviously don't use it like that, which makes it absolutely impossible to interpret their texts. At least if you are conditioned to interpreting it that way.
  - drdeca 3y ago