Using periods in chat... Opinions?
@Foofad – I agree with most of what you typed. However, I cannot agree with the presence of a period denoting an arrogance or finality in the tone of a message.
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Also, I’ve never heard of periods being a factor when potraying tone in type. For that, I always thought one used exclamation marks or capitlization. A period is just what goes at the end of every sentence. I’m not trying to denote a moment of finality, simply that it’s my habit to end sentences with “period, space, space.”
Well, that’s basically the thing. It’s highly subjective, and it’s also highly situational. The main point to understand is that, at a very fundamental level, someone like you who is communicating using a very academically correct syntax is actually using language in a totally different capacity than someone who might just be casually communicating in the way that seems natural to them.
In a way, you (and others who disagree that periods can have as much power as they do) are effectively taking the subjectivity and tonal information out of the period by disregarding it as a functional characteristic of the written language rather than allowing it to be just as much of a communication tool as the words that preceded it.
That, I think, gets right to the heart of the schism we’re having in this thread.
Someone judging another as arrogant for writing with periods is prejudice, and likely results from that person being arrogant. It is actually quite hypocritical.
That said, I am not sure if I use periods in chat very often. I think I mostly use exclamation points and question marks, but rarely periods. I definitely do not judge a person as arrogant for using a period.
Personally I think people are getting a little too hung up on the word “arrogant” as used in this context. As I said before (though maybe not so cut and dried) I actually think that the OP’s use of the word is a little misguided and may not actually reflect what those people were thinking accurately. I believe they were experiencing dissonance in the tone and the method of communication and mistaking that for arrogance. In other words, the use of the period wasn’t some sort of holier-than-thou jab at the unwashed, ignorant plebes – it was just too formal and didn’t jive with the casual situation the group found themselves communicating in.
Eilir Eirasdottir, Guardian, Tarnished Coast
Painbow.6059: Ignore what anyone else who doesn’t agree with me has said because its wrong.
Painbow.6059: Ignore what anyone else who doesn’t agree with me has said because its wrong.
(edited by foofad.5162)
Personally I think people are getting a little too hung up on the word “arrogant” as used in this context. As I said before (though maybe not so cut and dried) I actually think that the OP’s use of the word is a little misguided and may not actually reflect what those people were thinking accurately. I believe they were experiencing dissonance in the tone and the method of communication and mistaking that for arrogance. In other words, the use of the period wasn’t some sort of holier-than-thou jab at the unwashed, ignorant plebes – it was just too formal and didn’t jive with the casual situation the group found themselves communicating in.
Oh, well said! Yes I can see why keeping it casual is preferential. I personally like to promote the proper use of punctuation and grammar (even though I often mis-use it myself).