Periodic Annoyance

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The annoying habit of writers ending questions with periods rather than question marks is fairly infectious, and much to my dismay, I have become a victim of it, more than once, especially in instant messaging sessions. Has anyone else fallen prey to this syndrome.

Comments

  1. Roy Jacobsen says:
    2004-06-01 at 16:21

    If it’s intermittent, and totally accidental, then it doesn’t bother me nearly as much as people who don’t know how to use an apostrophe.

    And then? there are those people? usually teenage girls? who break every sentence? into a series of questions?

  2. Wayne says:
    2004-06-01 at 19:35

    Why do you ask.

  3. Arnold Gamboa says:
    2004-06-01 at 22:46

    I don’t mind, do you.

  4. Noelle says:
    2004-06-02 at 02:23

    Argh! Grammar mistakes… weakening my English! Must break free!

  5. nomad says:
    2004-06-02 at 02:43

    I’m pretty anal about my punctuation and grammar, but can be flexible when in fast speed chat mode.

  6. anj says:
    2004-06-02 at 03:07

    okay lang kung hindi formal, di ba.

    by the way, i like the kitty cats! i miss having one. :(

  7. Sparticus says:
    2004-06-02 at 07:13

    I find the most annoying thing by fair in instant messaging to be the use of the ‘send’ button instead of punction. So the message *new message* ‘I’m fine thanks, are we still on for tonight? What do you want to go see? Have you seen Troy yet?’ becomes *new message* ‘I’m fine thanks’ *new message* ‘are we still on for tonight?’ *new message* ‘What do you want to go see?’ *new message* ‘Have you seen Troy yet?’

  8. Jason Wall says:
    2004-06-02 at 13:00

    I make an effort to both properly capitalize and punctuate my IM conversations (but i occasionally digress).

    I use the send button, not necessarily to puctuate, but to give verbal pauses (you can’t do that in text as easily, and sometimes its necessary).

    Wayne and Arnold’s posts cracked me up. *grin*

  9. Raffy says:
    2004-06-02 at 20:49

    What.

  10. Mike says:
    2004-06-03 at 00:00

    You people actually use the “Send” button? Good grief.

    Hitting the “Enter” key is *much* easier (and quicker!), especially when you’re on IM a lot like I am.

  11. Sparticus says:
    2004-06-03 at 04:11

    That’s what I meant really!

  12. drakulita says:
    2004-06-03 at 10:06

    haha. yes, it can be annoying!!!

  13. Grumpy Proofreader says:
    2004-06-04 at 13:38

    I proofread for a court reporting service, and it bugs me to no end that the reporters were *taught* to end “polite requests” with a period — for example, “Could you please mark this as exhibit 3.”

    Then again, when referring to a computer system, they refer to the monitor as the “computer” and the system unit as the “hard disk”, so it’s not as though they’re the sharpest doorknobs in the sack.

  14. Stephen Sequeira says:
    2004-06-09 at 13:53

    I do believe it is an anglicism (should that be capitalized?). I first noticed it upon moving overseas to Belgium, where I attended school with quite a few Britons. They have several other quirks (at least, they are from my point of view!), such as omitting punctuation and combining multiple sentences into one.

    Love it!