Ask HN: (Why) do we often drop punctuation in messenger apps? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: (Why) do we often drop punctuation in messenger apps?

8 pointsmeow1120129 comments

My daughter asked such question when they looked at my typing on my laptop. I have noticed the same pattern in my Markdown documentations too, which is bad.

What is the standard now?

View on HN

I am still a fan of the "proper grammar" we learned in school.

As to the issue of dropped punctuation and other grammar atrocities, thank SMS -- old school text messages.

Then came Twitter, and in the beginning they had a SMS-to-Twitter function (or something like it).

Last, shrinking devices and crappy typing experiences. T9 was amazing but inferior to a real keyboard. Today, all thumb-typing virtual keyboards are also crappy compared to a physical one. But lets be honest, who wants to carry around a full-sized keyboard just to community digitally with perfect Chicago-style [1] grammar?

[1] - https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

Punctuation is a way of communicating tone, and a more friendly way of communicating is to omit periods. Note that omitting a question mark actually makes a message less friendly, so it’s a matter of observation and convention rather than inherent nature. For example, repeated commas,,, give more of a trailing off tone than ellipsis... which indicates a pause. I think kids get this kind of stuff intuitively and adults have to be told more often.

I used to take punctuation and grammar very seriously until I've met a person that studied literature(was almost a PhD at the time) and showed me a movement of people writing poetry without punctuation or proper grammar, as well they wrote like people spoke in different regions spoke colloquially in my home country. It gave those texts much more meaning, feeling and made sense, as rarely people spoke anywhere close as school lectured them to write it.

I've became quite fond of that idea, because I've always dealt with the "representation" problem having the background I have. Basically almost everybody in my country is poor and had "poor" education, our language was brought to us by europeans by force. I've never felt like the same as the people who had parents which spoked in a very polished way, because my parents didn't. So didn't my family and friends.

I've became a bit happier about myself and who I am as I started to accept the way I write. I also don't buy all the cultural heritage we've got and I believe I can think for myself and leave those tiny languages nuances, that might be important when people are writing laws or fancy books that I'm not interested at as I know that the reason behind those are usually to rip people off, or to feel that they don't belong. It's like a race of imperfect people to see who is the least imperfect, sort of tragic. Rather than people trying to find acceptance and who they are.

I feel it has a very negative impact to my fellow nation, as we can't really identify with the europeans and meanwhile we always feel like we are doing something wrong.

Diminishing returns. Punctuation is usually a hassle on mobile, as is capitalization (when not done automatically). Accuracy is not top priority in real time chatting since the reader can quickly ask something they didn't understand. Regarding this last point I often find myself using proper grammar when writing a message that I don't expect the reader to read immediately, or if I'm initiating a conversation, then switch to a more informal tone.

I don't. I write the same way everywhere. Email, SMS, IRC, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, Twitter, documentation, etc.

The writing is not always 'essay' grade, though.

The punctuation serves a purpose of separating thoughts from each other and conveying the tone. In messaging apps you separate thoughts by sending them as separate messages and convey the tone through emojis.

In the time-stressed and client-diverse environment of synchronous text conversations punctuation becomes redundant.

My standard is punctuation, capitalization, and spelling out what I mean. Other people have different standards and that's fine by me. No really it is. I'm just not trying to be someone I ain't.

I use proper grammar in every medium with the exception of rapid-fire IM. (It’s my personal preference.) It’s become so easy too, because autocorrect and other grammar assistance tools are so powerful these days.

There was a study that showed people perceived individual messages with periods to be sent by angry people, or something like that. I wish I could find it again.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com