Punctuation

[GrandDesespoir]

AIBU to wonder why people make up their own personal rules for punctuation when this usually only has the effect of obfuscating what they're trying to say? (NB I'm not talking about established writers who have done this like James Joyce and e e cummings.)

I'm thinking of things like random spaces before exclamation or question marks, unnecessary capital letters, words in quotation marks when they have no need to be, and (my pet peeve) completely eshewing punctuation in favour of an ersatz stream-of-consciousness style with loosely-connected (or completely incoherent) thoughts separated by an indiscriminate number of dots.

Nobody suddenly decides they're going to start writing 1.2 when they actually mean 12, or 3 x 3 = 6 when they mean 3 + 3, so why do some people apparently think they should use punctuation differently to everybody else?

My dad always used to insist it is different FROM, not different to.

You do know some long words.How very clever you are.

*eschewing

Punctuation matters to you (and to me). However, it matters very little to some people. Similarly, football (for example) matters greatly to some, who perhaps struggle to understand why I don't care about it. Different folks have different priorities.

Maybe not so clever then

Should that not be E E Cummings?

I have no idea why people do this. Perhaps, in some cases, it's because they're not sure where the correct punctuation should go.

chasinghighs - no, it is indeed lowercase.

Different FROM, similar TO

Ersatz

I'm not keen on over-use of brackets, personally, but to each their own....

Fair enough.

Maybe these people are not very good at typing?

Yes, eschewing. Touché, but then I wouldn't deliberately, erm, eschew the correct spelling in favour of my own version.

No, it isn't E E Cummings. That was the point.

It is always a good idea to proof read one's posts when launching into a rant about grammar and punctuation .

I am applauding SmileEachDay as should we all.

OP - look up Muphry's Law.

No, OP, you wouldn't. But you might make a careless error.

You're doing something that I, as an English teacher, hate. You're deliberately using language to exclude and to claim some sort of superiority.

That is othering, for people with SLDs, it is cruel to people for whom literacy has been difficult and it's twattish to those people who are in a rush and can't be arsed.

There are less cunty antagonistic ways to deliver a message.

Thanks Doom

Yes, Muphry's Law indeed. However I could have misspelt every word in my post (assuming it was accidental) and it wouldn't have invalidated my point.

I don't know where punctuation should go. I was taught how to use a full stop and that's it. I worked out question marks by myself though. I remember my A level English teacher suggesting, very gently, that I stopped using commas and semi colons as I very rarely got them right. He said I should use a dash instead as the rules were less rigid.

The only punctuation thing I've really noticed is how excitable text is these days with all the !!!

FFS, I'm not talking about careless errors! Or about those who find using written English difficult. I didn't ask why some people are less good at punctuation.

I'm talking about simply deciding, very consciously, to do things differently to/from/than/under most other people, not being unaware of the rules. Like deliberately adding a space before a question mark.

Crikey, didn't realise it was that flippin' contentious.

Perhaps if you been less bothered about sounding like a clever clogs and more interested in communicating your message, you'd have sparked a more interesting discussion?

I've never seen anyone doing those things (e.g. adding spaces before question marks) in any way that suggests anything other than rushed / unedited typing.

I have no idea why people do this. Perhaps, in some cases, it's because they're not sure where the correct punctuation should go.

I had genuinely never thought this, perhaps because I'd never considered the people I know who do it to have any confidence issues with literacy. Anyway, thank you for actually answering my question.