[tobr]

You can apply the same reasoning to any of the myriad ways we pick up social, emotional clues from people around us. Facial expressions, body language, brevity, melody, choice of words, clothing, typography, use of emojis, and so on. All of these things are nuanced, vibrant, easily misjudged hints of what another person is feeling, how they see you, or how much they care. You can’t really choose freely how to interpret them, you just do, and sometimes you’re bound to get it wrong.

[powersnail]

> You can't really choose freely how to interpret them

Of course, you can.

That first moment of gut feeling is outside the control of your consciousness, but after that, it's a choice.

You can tell yourself, and persuade yourself, that you don't know the why the other person ended a sentence with a period. Because, the fact is, you don't.

Not to mention that an ending period is quite commonly added by dictation software, so it's not even certain that the other person added it by choice.

Furthermore, the myriad of social cues usually emerge in a whole package. You get to see a whole face, or a whole body, with the words, said with human voice. That's significantly more data than the presence of a period.

[iamdbtoo]

How you intepret those is absolutely a choice. If you do not have enough information to know 100% what the intention of the other person is, then wherever you land is a decision. If it's that the person is angry, that's your choice the same if you believe the person is not angry.

[phist_mcgee]

You sound like you have never worked in the business world before. Half of business is picking up on tone, ambiguous phrasing, and empty promises with smiles. Reading between the lines is a core part of interpreting meaning, and it why many people with autism spectrum disorders really struggle with things like sales, or people management (at least from the customer or employee's side). Nuance is everything here.

If my boss chucks an ellipsis at the end of the message, does that mean he wants me to....

Answer an implied question?

Wait for him to keep writing more information?

That he wants me to justify what he has just said?

It is not a choice as you argue, to interpret meaning behind ambiguous communication, and have effective communication. I cannot ignore implied tone, because I 'don't have 100% certainty of their intention'

[iamdbtoo]

You're talking about a completely different situation. In that situation, you should probably ask your boss for more information instead of assuming what he wants based on puncuation. I'm just saying that given the choice between applying malice to the punctuation, maybe do the opposite.

[MauranKilom]

That is entirely true, and I personally try to be very open-minded about how a particular message could have been meant. But you do have to make some decision regarding the interpretation (preferably the most favorable one) in order to compose an adequate reply.

And that's where things get difficult - at least in non-interactive environments. I've become very wary of the thousands of slight misinterpretations that my email messages might allow, and tend to rewrite most sentences once or twice to make the wording as unmistakable as possible (usually in a cycle of "how could this sentence be interpreted uncharitably?" -> fix it up).

With increasing daily email volumes I've had to tone that practice down (at least for less delicate messages) to get anything done at all. But you never really know how something was perceived unless it went really wrong.

[adjkant]

> If you do not have enough information to know 100% what the intention of the other person is

That's the thing - you almost never do.

> How you interpret those is absolutely a choice

The crux of the problem here is putting that choice on the reader instead of leaving them without one. Communicating emotion in text solves this issue of interpretation.