[greggyb]

I've come across the period-as-negative idea before. I communicate in text media to audiences ranging from people in their early twenties to several decades my senior. I strive to communicate similarly to all. This includes capitalization and punctuation. I've discussed the negative period with several folks in this range, and none indicate that they view my communication as abrupt, brief, or negative, but that they do sometimes notice that with others.

I ultimately come to this conclusion. A period is a tiny piece of a message. If something so small makes your message seem in some way negative, then your communication is already on the margin. You should look at other areas of your communication to improve.

My default view of messages in what seems quickly to be becoming the common text style (all lower-case with abbreviations and no punctuation, written in fits of stream-of-consciousness) expresses laziness and a sense of self-importance on the part of the author. I find that assuming good intentions of the author is a much better stance to take. Thus, I choose to interpret positively what might otherwise seem negative to me. If someone else is incapable of looking past a period, then my communication must be very poor indeed, and I must make efforts to improve it.

[hombre_fatal]

> I ultimately come to this conclusion. A period is a tiny piece of a message. If something so small makes your message seem in some way negative, then your communication is already on the margin. You should look at other areas of your communication to improve.

You're taking it all the way to an extreme where kids these days must be getting upset over periods in messages and wincing with tender emotions (which was a very popular takeaway when the study hit HN).

But here's an actual quote:

> University researchers examined how including or omitting a period in a one-word text response to an invitation — like “yeah,” “maybe” or “nope” — affected people’s understanding. “We found that if you put a period after those short, one-word responses, the people reading the texts … understand (it) as being more negative, less enthusiastic, than if they had no period,” co-author Celia Klin told Moneyish. “We’ve agreed that putting a period after a one-word response in a text conveys something like abruptness, annoyance, negativity.”

Sounds pretty reasonable to me for SMS/WhatsApp texting, and definitely something I agree with since ending a one-word statement with a period when you otherwise never use periods is clearly a statement no matter how small.

And of course, in typical fashion, word of mouth and the Chinese whispers game have bastardized that into what the above HNer claimed: "As far as punctuation, ending periods actually have negative emotion in text vernacular now for younger audiences and should almost never be used in 1-1 messaging."

[bleeding]

Even absent a study providing empirical evidence (the OP might not even have been referring to any sort of study, perhaps his comment was meant to reference his personal experience) the statement could still be true. If you are sending primarily one-sentence messages, as many people do in SMS/iMessage/Slack, the line break effectively serves the function of denoting the end of a single sentence. And if that is the case, what is the purpose of a period other than to add additional, perhaps emotional, meaning to the sentence?

[greggyb]

If a one-word response would seem more negative or less enthusiastic with a period, then I posit it was not carrying a positive or enthusiastic message in the first place. If I want someone to interpret a one-word answer as enthusiastic, I'll put a bloody exclamation point on it.

And you get back to the real core of my point (though I could probably have been clearer).

> Sounds pretty reasonable to me for SMS/WhatsApp texting, and definitely something I agree with since ending a one-word statement with a period when you otherwise never use periods is clearly a statement no matter how small.

I punctuate fastidiously. In my un-blinded, anecdotal data, my interlocutors do not interpret my punctuation negatively. Sometimes they say my vocabulary makes it seem like I'm too big for my britches ... and that I use archaic idioms.

[rdw]

Cool.

[pixelpoet]

Bye.

[pertymcpert]

You've utterly missed the point. There are subtleties here that are completely lost on you. Just give up.

[scubbo]

Nice.

[phist_mcgee]

Cool bro, you know how to use big words, but you don't seem to know when to use them. That doesn't make you smarter than most, it makes your writing more obtuse.

[greggyb]

Yeah! Like I said, too big for my britches. (;

[8ytecoder]

It's usually the shift in tone or language that people notice. If you always call you husband darling and one day call him by name, the man's going to piss his pants wondering what he did wrong. If you write informally and without punctuation and one day shift to a formal message with proper punctuation, the change in tone won't go unnoticed. It signals a change in the relationship, barring any other major shifts.

[Izkata]

I think calling it a negative is overstating it, but it's what people go to because we don't really have a word for it. It's more like, an "I'm-putting-my-foot-down", don't argue with me, extra bit of finality. Kind of like a parent telling something to their kid with an air of authority, or the kid shutting down when the parent isn't accepting what they're saying.

For me, this started in the early 2000s with SMS, and really only applies to chat-style messages, which is why I have no problem using periods here.

[greggyb]

Or it's like you're ending a sentence the way you always do. I think it's like that.

[Izkata]

You have it completely backwards: "the way I always do" is chat-based. Has been for over a decade, even at work, where we barely use email. HN is the exception.

[pertymcpert]

Someone explained to you something you don't know, and you respond like this. Shameful.

[greggyb]

What was explained that I haven't encountered before? My original post in this thread clearly states that I have come across the phenomena before, and that I have explored it with multiple people.

You assume someone doesn't understand something, because they hold an opinion different than yours. And you judge moral character for making a joke online. And elsewhere in this thread, you are attempting to police my behavior and tell me when it is okay for me to speak.[0] Despite this, you clearly feel yourself to have the moral high ground over me.

Regardless of what you might think or believe, I evaluate my prior replies in light of every response, even yours. Will you evaluate your officious tone and domineering attitude?

[0] Specifically, not now, after you have determined I do not understand. How am I to learn if a demonstration of ignorance (or at least that indicates such to you) is a prompt to stop talking?

[kps]

> I've come across the period-as-negative idea before.

I've never come across the period-as-negative idea before. From the discussion here, it sounds like in-group signalling. For me, punctuation is an unconsious part of writing, and it would take special effort (or a browser extension) to remove it so as not to be marked as an outsider.

[adjkant]

> From the discussion here, it sounds like in-group signalling.

I'm so confused why someone would jump to "I don't do it" to "it must be an in-group signal". What group would this even be?

[ghaff]

I mean, even iOS specifically makes it easy to end a sentence with a period by making a double-spacebar make a period.