All this over a period.
A couple weeks ago a colleague sent me a little video clip that brought to my attention the various ways the good ole period, that simple punctuation mark, can make for a world of trouble. He asked me what I thought of the kerfuffling brouhaha. If you don’t know about this, let me explain. Apparently, the humble period, can indicate ill-feeling or anger in certain contexts. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know. I didn’t. No now we both do!.
My initial response was in line with what the video commenter was saying, and when pressed a bit more, I had a grumpy, “toughen up young’uns” sort of response that I blamed on the fact that it was too early in the morning to deal with such silliness. It was a dismissive response of someone who is only a few steps away from quitting the world, retreating into an off-grid world of books, farm-raised chickens, and properly punctuated reading materials. The younger generations can have their anarchic anti-punctuation victory while I wrestle with the deep issues of philosophy and chicken feed.
I wish I could blame a lack of coffee, or a tough night the evening before, on my dismissive response but it probably was just being tired. The simple truth is that I didn’t want to explore it at that moment and my reflexive grumption (that should be a word) allowed me to avoid the topic. I did start thinking more about it a few hours later and came to what I thought was a much better approach—an approach better for me and the hypothetical chickens.
As I started thinking about the situation and the very idea that a period could be interpreted as rude or indicating anger, I was reminded of an older colleague and friend who signs all of his texts with his full name. A completely unnecessary addition given how text messages among contacts work, but a flourish to his texts that’s completely understandable. He’s using a different software—a letter writing approach and that’s how he approaches texting. It doesn’t bother me and it’s rather endearing. My generation, Gen X, treats texting under a slightly different set of rules. We still treat texts as somewhat formal and use grammar suitable to that formality, but we also understand that certain things aren’t necessary, which is why we don’t sign our names. We adopt and use emojis, but we also maintain more traditional typing grammar. We’re not digital natives, but we’re also not completely unskilled in the realm. This situation seems to need some sort of expansion or reworking of Poe’s Law.
But my and other Gen Xers’ approach is radically different than the younger digital natives. For some Millennials and anyone younger, the research suggests that the end of the text, where the text bubble terminates, is sufficient to do the work of the period. To use it in addition to the visual break of a completed text bubble is to add in a level of aggression or anger. It’s not difficult to imagine that some communications get muddled when you have competing rule sets being followed. Thus, there can arise an issue with intention, meaning, and interpretation where signals can become confusing.
This is especially true in the workplace. Where a Gen Xer like me might not think twice about using the period in a text chat via phone, or some other messaging app, a younger person might interpret my words as tinged by or conveying anger because of that little mark closing my sentences. I am sure there have been some Xers unaware of the impact of their texts, while also at the same time, some genuinely confused Millennial or Gen Y person, as to why the “Thanks.” came with a period. When one of those two persons is in a professional setting where things like evaluations are important, such a usage difference could create difficult situations. I wonder if the ellipsis dots…cause even more worry for the younger folks?
While all this is pretty interesting for linguists, my friend mentioned to me that this whole issue annoyed him…a lot. The natural question that arose from this was, “Who’s was right? Should we side with the younger folks, those digital natives, or should the Gen Xer have their moment in the sun? Perhaps we should follow my old friend and declare his formality the winner?” To me, this situation is reminiscent of the debates concerning one or two spaces at the end of a sentence, or on the value of Comic Sans as a good font. People have very strong feelings, but I am not sure what benefit there is to declaring a winner.
In reality, nothing much is won when we declare a winner. It seems, rather, in pursuing a winner, a whole lot is lost. And that’s what I want to explore in my next post. What is lost when we pursue the “Who’s right?” question and how we might use the tools and techniques of philosophy to help us better understand this situation and how to proceed. For a bit of foreshadowing, what I really want to explore, is that the journey we went on to simply navigate the issues and see the various forces in play, are more than interesting. When we look for more than a simple right or wrong decree, we’re going to learn more about the world, the people in it, and how we can better communicate. And really, isn’t that what we’re really after?