What is it about the text messages and emails sent by older people that make me feel like I’m having a stroke?
Maybe they’re used to various shortcuts in their writing that they picked up before autocorrect became common, but these habits are too idiosyncratic for autocorrect to handle properly. However, that doesn’t explain the emails I’ve had to decipher that were typed on desktop keyboards. Has anyone else younger than 45 or so felt similarly frustrated with geriatrics’ messages?
For me it’s an old habit from IRC. Instead of sending 5/6/7 lines of text, I just cut it with … and continue typing on the same line. I could make complete sentences with capitals and periods but instant messaging is not a medium well suited for full sentences and paragraphs, so you get …
if you’re sending it in a single message the ellipses don’t make any sense. just use a single period, even of you don’t capitalize the beginning of the sentence. the ellipses thing is a contrivance that’s attempting to address a nonexistent problem in this case, and actually creates problems due to how most people interpret them.
if you’re rapid firing single sentences as individual messages in teams or something, the discrete message bubbles take the place of the ellipses. just don’t use any punctuation at the end of the sentence/message. also you’ll probably have people wanting to beat your face in with their phone that won’t stop vibrating.
“cutting it with ….” takes more keystrokes than a single period on your part, and leads to many people assuming you’re either a chronically stoned sloth or a sarcastic dick. i don’t understand why anyone who uses ellipses isn’t doing everything in their power to break that habit. someone needs to make a no ellipses site in the vein of nohello.net.
Give them their ellipses, and they shall grant you your no caps. Sigh.
I specifically turned off my phones auto-capitalization setting because it was making me look ridiculous in my Discord group chats. I’ve turned it back on for you though.
It honestly was starting to annoy me when posting here though, as most people format their posts pretty nicely.