Comment by elliekelly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by elliekelly | Hacker News Reader

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It’s a pretty well documented/discussed aspect of text-based digital communication. Kind of like how text written in all caps is interpreted as “shouting”.

I’m honestly shocked there are HN users who are unaware of the tone implications.

Period. Full Stop. Point. Whatever It’s Called, It’s Going Out of Style (2016): https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/world/europe/period-full-...

The Period Is Pissed (2013): https://newrepublic.com/article/115726/period-our-simplest-p...

Stop. Using. Periods. Period. (2016): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/13/stop-...

The Secret Emotional Lives of 5 Punctuation Marks (2014): https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/59060/secret-emotional-l...

Why Does Using a Period in a Text Message Make You Sound Angry or Insincere? (2016): https://theconversation.com/why-does-using-a-period-in-a-tex...

Yes. A Study Shows that Ending Your Texts with a Period Makes You Sound Like an Asshole (2016): https://www.mic.com/articles/130042/ending-your-texts-with-a...

> I’m honestly shocked there are HN users who are unaware of the tone implications.

The tone implications are not an objective fact. They are a quirk of your social group.

As I wrote above, I'm "aware" of the implication in that I have seen it described many times. But it's not an implication that actually exists in any context I am part of.

By contrast, the belief that the ordinary smile emoji U+14642 constitutes an insult rather than a smile is a very real, and therefore more painful and annoying, part of my personal context.

Since my social group does not extend to the NY Times, Washington Post, or any of the authors of any of the links I posted it’s quite clearly not just a “quirk” of my social group. It’s part of a wider shift in how we use language to communicate online.

You can accept it or you can ignore it. Either way, the shift has already happened whether you’ve realized it or not.

My Grandma TYPES LIKE THIS ON FACEBOOK because she insists it shows her excitement. Silly, Grandma...

> You can accept it or you can ignore it. Either way, the shift has already happened whether you’ve realized it or not.

You viewing periods as threatening is not a shift that has happened to me. It's a shift that's happened to you. If I were to "accept it" as you suggest, the only thing that would happen would be that I started misinterpreting my friends and taking offense where none was offered. No part of that is a good idea.

You seem to have a lot of difficulty with the idea that different groups might not communicate in the same way. Do you really believe that everyone using 88 as a fun way to say "bye" is really signaling Nazi sympathies?

Sounds like you not having the shift described by the other guy is a quirk of your social group. Either way, you're both arguing which is more prevalent because it's implied that not 100% of everyone agrees with a social norm. We go with the majority.

I don't think "we go with the majority" just because you prefer the majority's preferences. There are many cultures on the internet and the planet, and they have their own local preferences. If anything, I think it would make sense to go by the Robustness Principle (be conservative in what you send, liberal with what you receive), though not everyone has to accept that, of course.

> My Grandma TYPES LIKE THIS ON FACEBOOK because she insists it shows her excitement

Yeah, and since she's your grandma you read her allcaps as excitement, don't you? mom glare

As a bridger, I think you all need to see the gradients that exist in language, and learn how to read, maybe write dialect

You're saying the tone implications are a quirk of our social groups. Because of how widespread it is now, I'd argue the lack of tone implications is a quirk of your social groups. You don't have to change how you communicate within your groups, but I hope you'll at least keep this is mind when communicating with people outside those groups.

> the belief that the ordinary smile emoji U+14642

For those who wonder and had to search, it's U+1F642.

https://emojipedia.org/slightly-smiling-face/

Seems to indicate it can be used in either sense... I think the sarcastic use is not universal.

Edit: just found out HN doesn't let me use emojis, probably a wise move.

Interesting. I notice this thread has gradually shifted from being about emails to being about text messaging, and not sure if people noticed, maybe that explains the apparent crossed wires?

It's news to me that full stops are considered rude, but then I don't have a mobile phone. I chat a lot on facebook though, and on MSN before that (with people in many countries, half of them in spanish). Always in...sentences, with full stops. Maybe text chat is a third thing, different to both texting on a phone and email? I don't know. I'd never have suspected a full stop could be rude until reading this thread though!

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