Rude punctuation & TXTS

[Skanky Vamp]

Nobody likes a grammar Nazi. They’re tiresome, they’re wrong half the time, and they want the entire world to revolve around their love of high school English. And this dislike may, perhaps, have spread to the world of texting, as researchers have found the humble period to signal insincerity.

Their research method was pretty straightforward; they had their subjects read a series of texts, each of which were a question and a one-word answer. Think along the lines of texting somebody to ask if they want to split a pizza. The responses that didn’t end with anything were rated as far more sincere than those using the right punctuation, so, at least for 126 college students, proper punctuation is a sign of rudeness. If you were wondering, an exclamation point sounds really sincere over text, and this doesn’t hold true of handwritten notes; the same study found that there’s no effect on perception if you use a period when jotting something down for a friend.

The study argues that punctuation, in texting, is taking the place of the subtle cues we use to read somebody in conversation, along with emoticons, deliberate misspellings, and spelled-out nonverbal sounds like “um.”

 

[Wildfly]

k
Is more rude than using period

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Nobody likes a grammar nazi?
Have a look at successful film scripts, for an actor to say their lines effectively the grammar and punctuation has to be right. So from that aspect it is fair to say the initial comment is wrong.

 

[Blaze]

I read a very interesting piece written by a lit major on tumblr (not very scientific, but the person had a good point, which I don't want to take for my own). Essentially they said that texting has evolved as it's own language in a way that we could understand emotion and tone over a written message. The person had compared two texts, one with proper punctuation, and one that would be written without the proper punctuation, and the two read completely differently, and it was crazy to think we could condition our brain to understand the difference between that new text language and old fashion language. It's basically the evolution of a language to suit a need, which has happened many times in the pass (not really too familiar with English, but old French actually would be considered slang nowadays compared to our new French, which is kinda funny to think about).

Overall, I agree with the punctuation thing, when I text people, I don't punctuate as I do, for example, on a site like this. The main different is in the length of the message, when you write a short message, you gotta get the right point across.

"Yes!" vs "Yes" vs "Yes." are basically three different thing.

In a longer message, than I will most likely use correct punctuation. And I hate using abbreviation, like "ur" for your. That's just dumb, write the whole dam word!

 

[Fuffy Baith]

As an English major I'm the worst at shorthand texting. I'm pretty good at having proper punctuation but I give a pass to texting and online messaging. I try not to be a grammar nazi though. But I actually do like editing papers, it's the best part for me. But yea I'm bad when texting cause I just don't care. I wouldn't say it's rude, people are just in a hurry really. I think as long as you know proper spelling and grammar then it's fine. Is the people that actually don't know how to spell and think text language is right. That bugs me.

 

[Wildfly]

In a longer message, than I will most likely use correct punctuation. And I hate using abbreviation, like "ur" for your. That's just dumb, write the whole dam word!

*damn 🙂
sure language is a dynamic, living thing, we shape it as we go................
so you never wanted to take a walk on the wild side and use "u've", "pls" or "y'all"?
but maybe you're comfortable with other abbreviations?
as in writing etc instead of et cetera or
f.e. instead of for example and cont'd instead of continued?

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Many years ago on this site Blondie Bear told me I was becoming an error Nazi (errors/ bloopers in the series) like her. So I have no problems with this, Wildfly. The proper way to abbreviate etc is to use a colon after it, etc:.

 

[Mr Trick]

I would be more open to text speak as a new language if it wasn't for the fact that people write like that sometimes on the internet too. I'm the oppisite to Blaze as I actually think that its the shorter messages where there is less excuse for bad punctuation, but then although my texts can be fairly long, I don't think I would ever do one as long as discussed. We all make mistakes from time to time, nothing wrong with that, makes us human, and there in a text its not that important, but that's still no reason to be lazy.

 

[Blaze]

*damn 🙂
sure language is a dynamic, living thing, we shape it as we go................
so you never wanted to take a walk on the wild side and use "u've", "pls" or "y'all"?
but maybe you're comfortable with other abbreviations?
as in writing etc instead of et cetera or
f.e. instead of for example and cont'd instead of continued?

Did I mention how much I hate text talk for situation outside of texting 😛 And I do capitalize over text! I'm not that bad mate!

The only abbreviations I used are scientific 😀 I don't know why, I'm just not a fan of abbreviating stuff. I do use etc, but abbreviating a long latin word makes more sense than abbreviating a 4 letter word to a 2 letter word.

 

[Wildfly]

Did I mention how much I hate text talk for situation outside of texting 😛 And I do capitalize over text! I'm not that bad mate!

What we're having is a conversation. i am not sure what rules should apply. chat talk ones? youtube trolling rules or strict forum rules with codex that filter everything except the veiled insults? business correspondence rules??? 😕

i am not much into rules myself, don't even care if someone commits one of the deadly sins
confusing then/than or your/you're as long as the meaning is clear.
(though it's true, the meaning can be a bit confusing if someone omits a comma or writes 'm8')
after all, English is butchered daily by us, non-native speakers, who each has his own perception about syntax 😛
or sometimes we compose a line in our native Hungarian/Zulu/etc,
then we make a valiant effort to translate it into English, with varying degrees of success.

there are trillion ways writing the same sentence, starting from :
'why u du dis 😛'
to 'Why you do this...?!'

...and that's all we have without our live delivery (which, as some say, has more impact than the actual words said)
so... if chat talk can help us to be more expressive and avoid misundrestandings, why not use them?

 

[Skanky Vamp]

The only abbreviations I used are scientific 😀

That's just because you cant spell them right? I mean, trying to spell pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism just begs you to abbreviate it.

 

[GwenRaiden]

What I find weird in modern text speak, that instead of replying or answering a question with words, is that more and more people use an emoji.

I'm thinking along the lines of texts/whatsapp/facebook/twitter, where it's quite prominent as people use their mobiles phones as their main device to communicate on these platforms, and most phones have a big list of emojis pre-installed.

Like, really? You're going to reply to my message asking if you want to meet up with a *thumbs up* emoji? I feel like emoji usage as "language" is a sign of the devolution and dumbing down of human language. Sending pictures instead of words to express yourself. I'm glad the boards don't have a million emojis!

*punch to the face emoji*

 

[Ethan Reigns]

The whole idea of language is to transfer the contents of one person's mind into another. If it works and is unambiguous, it meets this requirement. However, the OP's contention that proper punctuation is rude is something I do not understand. There is a difference between connotation (the feeling of a word) and denotation (the dictionary definition) and I suppose the same thing might work with punctuation where correct punctuation is seen as either stilted or conceited but I really don't get the immediate translation of it as rude. There was a time when texting was priced by the character for both the transmitting and the receiving party so it might be just a reaction to the extra cost but that is not the case today.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

It's hard enough to text and drive now, if I have to hit the other button to pull up the character screen to put in a period it's too much effort. I almost drove off the road once trying to put in a ?. Fact.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

It's hard enough to text and drive now, if I have to hit the other button to pull up the character screen to put in a period it's too much effort. I almost drove off the road once trying to put in a ?. Fact.

That would get you three points off your license and a $390 fine here. And that is too lenient.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Wildfly,
in answer to your comment on my post #7.
A colon is a punctuation mark, that is all it is and to use it after etc to make the abbreviation correct is correct in itself. So it is neither rude nor insensitive to use it in its correct form. Now if someone has decided it is rude to use the colon in its correct manner, as a punctuation, that way it does not mean they are right.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

confusing then/than or your/you're as long as the meaning is clear.

No. I don't agree with this one. Do not confuse words just because they sound similar. The meaning is not clear because those words have different meanings. If it's an error, then correct it, otherwise most likely the person doesn't know the difference.

 

[FellDownAlone]

Misspellings and lack of grammar physically hurt my eyes. It sounds like an exaggeration, but I really do get a head ache from them.
"Wha u tp 2?"
I can tell what someone is trying to ask me, but I seriously want to punch them. I leave them be, though. I just let it simmer in my head. Unless it's a close friend and we're teasing each other.

 

[SlayerFest]

Haha yeah I do tend to only end sentences with periods in texts when I'm...peeved, but it depends. I type/text pretty much the same way that I talk and in general I'd say that I have pretty good grammar...and people assume that I'm a grammar nazi but I actually *hate* grammar nazis with a passion. I think it's rude as hell to correct someone's grammar, unless they ask me to.

 

[bespangeled]

Applesauce! Yer all balled up, you wet blankets! Just butt me! You're a bimbo and I'm the bees knees with cheaters. So gimme a handcuff, you hoofer! It's all Jake with Jack for the Jane! Got enough rubes and we can hop in the struggle bunny - so just don't take me for a ride!

Slang of the 1920

And that was less than a century ago...

Here's the shocker - Bimbo - a tough guy