3 ms·

It's a mistake to think of "correct punctuation" as some sort of abstract goal to attain. Communication is about making yourself understood, and punctuation is

by gizmo 13y ago

It's a mistake to think of "correct punctuation" as some sort of abstract goal to attain. Communication is about making yourself understood, and punctuation is a means to that end. When people expect a period to mean one thing because most people use a period in that fashion then what do you accomplish by defecting from that common usage? In meatspace you can rely on nonverbal cues, online you cannot. So if we can overload the semantics of a period and of capital letters to help compensate for the lack of nonverbal communication, all the better. Full sentences and proper grammar don't go away -- they just take on a different meaning. Clear communication is hard enough as is, why complicate matters further by limiting yourself to perfect sentences and lose out on the extra nuance?

CodeMage 13y ago
Funny, that's precisely why I'm trying to make my punctuation correct -- to compensate for the lack of nonverbal cues. I believe that by using "proper" punctuation -- and I'll explain my idea of "proper" shortly -- I can structure my sentences in such a way as to help the reader understand the nuances of what I intended to say, instead of having the reader try to guess it while parsing my sentences. Think of it as optimization hints for a compiler ;) Also, you'll notice that I don't hold fanatically to punctuation rules or rely on punctuation alone: for example, I use emoticons to try to convey my "tone" and if my sentence ends with an emoticon, I don't include the full stop. As for what I believe to be "correct punctuation", I guess my definition of "correct" stems from an increasingly outdated and somewhat romantic belief that people read books ;) My rationale is that the multitude of authors use punctuation more or less consistently, which trains readers to have a certain set of expectations. If my punctuation doesn't match their expectations, I'm more likely to provoke a miscommunication. So it all boils out to assumptions and expectations, which is why I said I feel old: mine are outdated ;)
bmelton 13y ago
> why complicate matters further by limiting yourself to perfect sentences and lose out on the extra nuance? My problem with that, and I'm sympathetic to both situations, but it seems as though the rules of proper grammar have been replaced with new rules that are less expressive than the old rules. Sure, if the community infers a period as hostile, then clearly, one attempting to avoid seeming hostile would be wise to avoid using periods. However, why is that the case? How did it get there in the first place? Yes, I know it's been this way for awhile, but the editor in my soul won't allow me to craft broken sentences, even where I know that they'll be more effective at communicating. Yes, I acknowledge that's a problem of mine, but I would argue that the bigger problem is that people are looking for more expressiveness by arbitrarily assigning connotation to things that otherwise bear none, while completely disregarding that there are ways to be more expressive through regular old English.
- gizmo 13y ago
  1. NO. 2. No. 3. no. 4. No 5. no Only number 2 is correct grammatically. You can expand the list with other versions of no (nope, no-no) and with other punctuation (exclamation mark, ellipsis). There are easily 20 different versions of "no" I can think of from the top of my head. Clearly being able to pick the "no" that fits best is an expressive advantage. I agree that there are ways to express yourself precisely in correct/formal English, but it's a lot more verbose. Language is really pliable. It's quite strange that "fuck no" offends only puritans but "uhm... no." can set off fireworks with nearly anybody. I guess we all just have to adapt.
  - humanrebar 13y ago
    > Language is really pliable. It's quite strange that "fuck no" offends only puritans but "uhm... no." can set off fireworks with nearly anybody. I'd be more offended by the former than the latter, though I wouldn't be all that offended in either case. > I guess we all just have to adapt. I agree, if by adapt you mean we can all just chill out a little and be better listeners. I think the graph of grammatical and punctuation expectations is growing a longer tail.
- socillion 13y ago
  There seems to be a common point of confusion in this discussion. It isn't the case that using a period implies hostility or anything else, it's using a period in a context where it's unexpected. In other words: if you avoid using periods in most messages, then use a period, it conveys just as much information about your tone as ending with an emoticon. If you always use a period, it's meaningless - but people don't, and therefore it has meaning in those situations.

by gizmo 13y ago

CodeMage 13y ago

Funny, that's precisely why I'm trying to make my punctuation correct -- to compensate for the lack of nonverbal cues. I believe that by using "proper" punctuation -- and I'll explain my idea of "proper" shortly -- I can structure my sentences in such a way as to help the reader understand the nuances of what I intended to say, instead of having the reader try to guess it while parsing my sentences. Think of it as optimization hints for a compiler ;) Also, you'll notice that I don't hold fanatically to punctuation rules or rely on punctuation alone: for example, I use emoticons to try to convey my "tone" and if my sentence ends with an emoticon, I don't include the full stop. As for what I believe to be "correct punctuation", I guess my definition of "correct" stems from an increasingly outdated and somewhat romantic belief that people read books ;) My rationale is that the multitude of authors use punctuation more or less consistently, which trains readers to have a certain set of expectations. If my punctuation doesn't match their expectations, I'm more likely to provoke a miscommunication. So it all boils out to assumptions and expectations, which is why I said I feel old: mine are outdated ;)

bmelton 13y ago

> why complicate matters further by limiting yourself to perfect sentences and lose out on the extra nuance? My problem with that, and I'm sympathetic to both situations, but it seems as though the rules of proper grammar have been replaced with new rules that are less expressive than the old rules. Sure, if the community infers a period as hostile, then clearly, one attempting to avoid seeming hostile would be wise to avoid using periods. However, why is that the case? How did it get there in the first place? Yes, I know it's been this way for awhile, but the editor in my soul won't allow me to craft broken sentences, even where I know that they'll be more effective at communicating. Yes, I acknowledge that's a problem of mine, but I would argue that the bigger problem is that people are looking for more expressiveness by arbitrarily assigning connotation to things that otherwise bear none, while completely disregarding that there are ways to be more expressive through regular old English.

gizmo 13y ago
1. NO. 2. No. 3. no. 4. No 5. no Only number 2 is correct grammatically. You can expand the list with other versions of no (nope, no-no) and with other punctuation (exclamation mark, ellipsis). There are easily 20 different versions of "no" I can think of from the top of my head. Clearly being able to pick the "no" that fits best is an expressive advantage. I agree that there are ways to express yourself precisely in correct/formal English, but it's a lot more verbose. Language is really pliable. It's quite strange that "fuck no" offends only puritans but "uhm... no." can set off fireworks with nearly anybody. I guess we all just have to adapt.
- humanrebar 13y ago
  > Language is really pliable. It's quite strange that "fuck no" offends only puritans but "uhm... no." can set off fireworks with nearly anybody. I'd be more offended by the former than the latter, though I wouldn't be all that offended in either case. > I guess we all just have to adapt. I agree, if by adapt you mean we can all just chill out a little and be better listeners. I think the graph of grammatical and punctuation expectations is growing a longer tail.
socillion 13y ago
There seems to be a common point of confusion in this discussion. It isn't the case that using a period implies hostility or anything else, it's using a period in a context where it's unexpected. In other words: if you avoid using periods in most messages, then use a period, it conveys just as much information about your tone as ending with an emoticon. If you always use a period, it's meaningless - but people don't, and therefore it has meaning in those situations.