Question marks seen as demanding

[HesARealDouche]

I somehow got onto the subject of question marks in messages with my 15 yr old DS.

He said that if one of his friends sent him a message along the lines of:

"Are you coming to the cinema tomorrow?" It would be seen as demanding an immediate answer and brusque in tone. The "friendly" way would be to send:

Are you coming to the cinema tomorrow.

Is this is nationwide thing or is it just my DS's school? Do your DCs use question marks?

Maybe there are separating dialects already?!

wuu2 = What are you up to?

The no punctuation marks reminds me of the spoken "Australian intonation" or upspeak. To me that me sounds like someone slightly afraid of expressing too much of an opinion either way.

RedRoseReb
Caps lock has been shouting since the turn of the century!

Interesting to learn what the kids are doing. I actually know what they mean with the full stop, have actually been doing so in WhatsApp now I stop to think about it.

Your son is very strange. Where did he get that idea? (Please not that my question mark is a demand for an immediate answer! Where did he get that idea then? Huh? HUH?)

I'm very offended by that MIL.

And that exclamation mark, ugh

DD says punctuation in texts is passive aggressive. Who knew?

RedRose

I have so much to learn. I so far have just given up decoding my 12 yr Olds texts.

my 14y old also sends messages with now vowles and no punctuation. They are almost unintellible. Well at least the replies to me Strangely, if he is asking me something, they tend to come through more intellible. So when I failed to pick him up after a few "pku 5" i now get "Hi Mum how are you could you please pick me up from the station at 5 please thanks please"

They also get upset at my whatsapp posts because I don't post a whole conversation in one massive speech bubble with one return key but break it up to sentences per bubble. Apparently this is "hassling"

My local Facebook page is the worst for badly used question marks, but they must be using all the ones that teenagers aren’t!
Common examples, “I need a gardener to sort out my shrubs?” “I’m selling a rabbit hutch?” And most annoyingly “My kitchen tap is broken? Does anyone know a good plumber.” I’m not sure if I live in a town of really uncertain people walking around in a fog of confusion. I’m selling a rabbit hutch? Me? How did my life come to this?

Is it just my town?

"My kitchen tap is broken? Does anyone know a good plumber.” 😂

Daphne I literally "lol"ed.

And I mean that.

Or should it be l-ed ol? Crikey, I'm Confused.com.

And as for text as a past tense. I know there are precedents but it sounds and looks wrong to my my eyes.