• Furbag@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The only reason your phone doesn’t add the punctuation in for you like it does the automatic capitalization of the first letter is because it can’t tell when you’ve finished your complete thought.

    I’ll never let lazy cunts tell me I’m being passive aggressive for using goddamn proper punctuation. I’ll be actively aggressive about that.

    edit:

    Can anybody in this thread who actively omits periods in texts specifically because of the negative connotations explain to me why they think that having that be a normal convention is actually good?

    Like, why would anybody want an option to sign off their texts with a passive aggressive slant? I can’t wrap my head around it.

    The firm believers in the whole “language is constantly evolving and has no rules” thing would probably not like it if future generations decided fuck using punctuation altogether. No commas, no questions marks, no paragraph breaks. It’s easier for them because they normally communicate in five dimensional haptic virtual reality where punctuation is an anachronistic holdover. How come you aren’t on board with their wacky language rules?

    I don’t give a shit if you don’t use punctuation in texts or not, that’s entirely on you and I don’t judge people for using shortcuts, but fuck if I’m going to let someone tell me using a period to end my sentences indicates anything other than “I have finished my thought / I have finished speaking.”.

    • Brosplosion@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      Because it can signal annoyance? It’s almost like having more possible meanings adds depth to conversation. The end of a text is already final enough, so a period doesn’t add any functionality that way unless you somehow believe someone got raptured mid sentence and still hit send.

      It’s like if you asked someone, “How are you?” And they said “I’m fine” or “I’m fine.” or “I’m fine!” or “I’m fine?” or “I’m fine…”

      It signals different connotations and tones for all five. Period is no longer default since they aren’t required, so they have taken on additional meaning

      • Furbag@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        The end of a text is already final enough, so a period doesn’t add any functionality that way unless you somehow believe someone got raptured mid sentence and still hit send.

        Sure it does. It disambiguates sentences from questions.

        If you received a text that read “Buy bread”, there are multiple ways to interpret that. If I assume the lack of a period is a statement, then I would assume the person is instructing me to buy some bread at the store. But if there were a question mark at the end, the meaning changes - they are asking if they need to buy bread, or perhaps asking if I have already bought bread or am planning to buy bread.

        Now, if you are familiar with the person on the other end of the text, you might already have the necessary context to parse it out without the need for formal punctuation, but if it’s someone you maybe don’t text very often or a complete stranger, wouldn’t it be nice to know for sure if they were making a statement or asking a question, definitively and clearly?

        Adding an intentional period removes any doubt that it might have been a question. It eliminates the possibility that the person on the other end simply forgot to add a question mark while typing out a hasty text at the grocery store.

        You might argue that period or no, the message got across just fine, and that assuming no punctuation is the same as having a period, but that’s not the point. The point is that the period does add functionality, it just isn’t functionality that you deem useful.

        I certainly wouldn’t want to replace the effectiveness of proper punctuation in favor of having the period be reduced to a means of signing off my messages in a passive aggressive manner. I can do that all by myself, thank you very much.