Here's a video! Enjoy. #linguistics #language #communication #punctuation

[perhaps]

“We’re not friends. I don’t know you. I don’t hate you though! I’m using exclamation points so you know my directness and formality aren’t hostile!” Is such a weirdly niche thing we all experience

[jademonass]

"heres a video. enjoy!" and "heres a video! enjoy." hit very different

[ohrats]

Glad I’m not the only one who mega overthinks emails lol

[potatoindespair]

Alternatively! If you're genuinely just really excited!! Just forego all other kinds of punctuation! And use varying amounts of exclamation points!!!

[ThatSpazChick]

English: Doesn't have tone indicators
Also English: Repurposes everything to be a tone indicator

[crispyrolls]

“Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

[WateverWatever]

This is also more of a thing for women! Studies show that if you use many exclamation points as a man, you're taking less seriously, but if you don't use them as a woman you are seen as rude!

[felixettos]

one of my favorite things about this guy's videos is when he demonstrates his point in the subtitles

[josephinehendricks]

I like to think that your videos will greatly help anthropologists understand the nuances in our culture in 500 years

[olb]

Semi-colons and extended sentences are really useful for tone in emails: you can drag out sentences to avoid sounding too blunt or passive aggressive, without unnecessary exclamation marks.

[Hoosnack]

I just replied on an email chain with a casual greeting (Hey <Name>, )to hammer home that as a customer I can take a slightly informal tone when they can’t. For the body, no exclamation points in the message, to convey that I wasn’t impressed with the quality of response they sent before. Then we end with a “Thanks!” to temper the mildly annoyed tone and imply that I’m not holding a grudge about it.

It’s exhausting 😅

[C_In_Outlaw]

When I write someone an email I am as grammatically correct as possible. I feel as though I use punctuation as appropriate, no more no less. I’m not even thinking about passive aggressiveness

[ehsome]

Funny that "punctuation" goes back to Latin pungere, meaning pierce or prick

First periods are passive aggressive in messaging and now this. The meaning has come full circle (in an abstract way now)

[TheCoroboCorner]

I always felt kinda like this:

Punctuation creates an additive emotion. What I mean by that is, the emotion lasts for the rest of the email. For example, exclamation marks add excitement, periods remove excitement (or add seriousness), and commas add a sort of informational tone.

While that's fine on its own, there is a bit of a sweet spot, if you're just using exclamation marks and periods: you don't want to sound too excited or too serious (too many exclamation marks or too many periods), so you balance them out as you go, as they sort of neutralize each other, so you need to find that sweet spot.

This doesn't necessarily apply when you're conveying an explanation with commas, as it would be a bit weird if you were super enthusiastic about an explanation, so being more serious-sounding is more natural, and thus, more periods than exclamation marks is more natural.

For an email, we have a sort of "business casual" mindset, so we want to be enthusiastic (but not too enthusiastic), and we want to be serious (but not too serious), so we usually balance it out sentence-by-sentence in whichever way best aligns with our mindset about it.

[niahniah]

I think it has a lot to do with tone. The period expresses firm, authoritative tone. The exclamation point expresses a more friendly and upbeat tone. And since things like punctuation are some of the few ways we’re able to convey tone in writing, we pay more attention to how they contribute to the overall tone of the message.

I actually think we do something similar when speaking aloud - using a mix of tone delivery to portray a certain overall vibe. And I think punctuation can pertain to one sentence when we’re only looking at or using one sentence at a time — because tone is always affected by every part of what we say, not just each part individually.

[saphiregough]

That's also simply how emotions work in the average subject.

[Lovrotte]

I do EXACTLY this. I don’t study or work in linguistics, but I started learning about it way back when I was around 10 and having that basic knowledge has helped me throughout all my academic and professional work ever since. As an autistic person, studying linguistics was better than any therapy. We need the international Olympiad of linguistics for students to come back and be just as recognised as the science/math ones.

[BigTaxi]

The subtitles! I love a little easter egg like what you did in this short.

[neighborhoodthreattv]

I have never sent an email that contained an exclamation point in my life. The only emails I've ever received that contain them were either form letters or from my grandmother. Nobody besides her sends me, individually, exclamation point-containing emails. I can't imagine the mindset of someone who views too many periods in an email as passive-aggressive.

[rafaelmarkos]

As someone who needs to do this awkward dance in quite a few Teams messages as well, thanks for reminding me about exhausting office comms when I have been trying to forget about it.