undefined | Better HN

0 pointsRusky5y ago0 comments

Text/instant messages have evolved their own norms, as all language does. To many people, periods have a different meaning there. See e.g. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/909969004/before-texting-your...

0 comments

klmarket5y ago

So again, people below 20 dictate what everyone else must do. It's a race to the bottom.

Afton5y ago

It's just a different convention. I don't see how that makes it a 'race to the bottom'.

dqv5y ago

It's pretty common with people I know born from 1980 and beyond. Of course, it gets more common the closer their year of birth is to the aughts. But I guess you are right, everyone doing it today was under 20 at some point.

oytis5y ago

As someone born in the late 80s I've only heard about it from the press. I really sometimes omit periods in one-sentence text messages, but sometimes I don't, and it wouldn't come to my mind to ascribe any semantics to this.

My personal nitpick is people writing a stream of one-sentence messages without punctuation instead of a longer structured message - that definitely carries the connotation of unstructured thinking to me - but it doesn't have much to do with full stops per se.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse