this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
459 points (97.3% liked)
Funny
6765 readers
639 users here now
General rules:
- Be kind.
- All posts must make an attempt to be funny.
- Obey the general sh.itjust.works instance rules.
- No politics or political figures. There are plenty of other politics communities to choose from.
- Don't post anything grotesque or potentially illegal. Examples include pornography, gore, animal cruelty, inappropriate jokes involving kids, etc.
Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the mods.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Ellipses as pauses is a leftover of telegrams which bled into the era of limited text messages(and/or charging by the text), because the financial incentives for long single messages were the same.
In the era of unlimited texting, though, we've dropped that convention because it's extra keystrokes. In fact, we've even dropped the period at the end of sentences in texts because you can just hit the send button as a thought separator, sending multiple texts.
Including the period is unnecessary extra information, so it is seen as formal at best or even a way to covey unhappiness, anger, or frustration.
Hope this helps! Note that none of this applies to longer form messages like this one.
This drives me nuts, that's what blank spaces are for. I don't like getting a half-dozen texts that blow up my phone, especially when I'm likely in a meeting or something. A text message should be a complete communication, with blank spaces to separate parts of the message.
For example:
My SIL would send that in like 7 texts somehow, whereas I'll send just one. I find it impolite to send so many, so I go out of my way to spend a few extra seconds making it nice for the other person to read.