> I feel like people complaining about this didn't grow up in the IRC/IM era.
At one time most written language didn't put spaces between words (some still do), and many languages don't write vowels. That's not a good reason for doing the same in your informal English Slack messages.
You can write an informal message and still use punctuation.
> 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.
It seems that people read too much into the intent (imagined or real) in a text message rather than just the content.
As an older user, I perceive messages that use text spelling (e.g. u instead of you or prolly instead of probably) as unprofessional, but I don't let that get in the way of the conversation
> Emails have their Pro's & Con's - I prefer them, but not everyone is able to be precise and on-point in written language. Also, you need to be able to express your feelings in written language.
This is exactly the opposite of what professionals do. They should be able to write well. It is not optional, it is an expectation. Feelings should not be part of a technical discussion.
In a few years, we're gonna get emojis in an RFC. Just wait, you!
> Perhaps people should just read the content of the message and stop worrying about the set-dressing. "They capitalized, they must be a nerd", "she ended that will a full stop, she must be mad!".
Aren't you doing exactly that when you complain how people type their messages?
The original comment is much better, please stop rewriting your comments using OpenAI.
> In fact, I did it for this comment.
Yes, it was obvious from the second sentence. The way ChatGPT structures text by default is very different from how most humans writes. Always the same "By using", "These X can range from" etc.
Padding your text with more words doesn't make it better, more words makes it worse, this isn't school.
> Nobody owes you adherence to a particular set of rules, nor do they owe you their thoughts at all.
What the hell? English has rules. If those rules aren't followed, it makes communication needlessly more difficult.
This isn't just a typo we're talking about. This is someone making a deliberate choice to be harder to understand because they see it as quirky and cool.
> This is way too much pedantry and hyper-hyphen-focus. Honestly, I don't care about endashes or emdashes. I've never seen them in business or personal writing, and I probably never will. They add nothing to anyone's communications.
You have definitely seen them. All professional writing outlets, like e.g. the New York Times, use em-dashes, curly quotes, and other “typographic” characters that one is supposed to use in American English.
And newspapers in my own country follow the typographical rules. Even though no one uses it in informal communication on HN or FB. (Well, some on HN do.)
> But I've had deep and meaningful relationships with people, fully remotely and text-based, since I used IRC as a teenager.
Me too, but I think perhaps that you and I are several standard deviations above the median in terms of reading comprehension and ability to write clearly.
Not everyone is capable of this, as I learned when I tried to run a whole-ass engineering org like I previously ran more informal teams on irc.
Most people are bad at reading comprehension. It's why they tell people to repeat and rephrase their points when communicating, to give their readers a second chance at getting it.
> I am pretty sure the recurrent small errors and weird phrasings undermine my reputation as someone that could teach the reader something
I'm living and working in London and English is not my native language. I'm doing lots of grammar and orthography mistakes every day. They really don't matter as long as I'm able to get my point across. That's all it matters. Even if someone was in the position to tell me that they don't trust me, I would leave BUT I would go somewhere else, I wouldn't go back to my home country.
Well maybe the above doesn't completely fit your case, I just wanted to share my 2 cents.
OS: I have been writing in my tech blog in English the past 5 years. Often times I'm catching my self reading my older posts and just can't stand them. They are awful. :D
> What's the fact that sometimes people mix up tabs and spaces got to do with anything?
Its a concession to the fact that humans are imperfect. When I am working with a group of people I find it easier to just use spaces instead of relaying on everyone configuring to use tabs correctly.
> why complicate matters further by limiting yourself to perfect sentences and lose out on the extra nuance?
My problem with that, and I'm sympathetic to both situations, but it seems as though the rules of proper grammar have been replaced with new rules that are less expressive than the old rules.
Sure, if the community infers a period as hostile, then clearly, one attempting to avoid seeming hostile would be wise to avoid using periods. However, why is that the case? How did it get there in the first place?
Yes, I know it's been this way for awhile, but the editor in my soul won't allow me to craft broken sentences, even where I know that they'll be more effective at communicating. Yes, I acknowledge that's a problem of mine, but I would argue that the bigger problem is that people are looking for more expressiveness by arbitrarily assigning connotation to things that otherwise bear none, while completely disregarding that there are ways to be more expressive through regular old English.
At one time most written language didn't put spaces between words (some still do), and many languages don't write vowels. That's not a good reason for doing the same in your informal English Slack messages.
You can write an informal message and still use punctuation.
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