Are full stops passive aggressive?

[Samas]

Are full stops really passive-aggressive now? According to my colleague they are, especially in text messages. Apparently, ending a sentence correctly is no longer “neutral” but somehow comes across as cold or hostile.

yabu= full stops are indeed PA
yanbu= of course they’re not

Oh my goodness, I have read it all now 🙈🥺🤷‍♀️ Please can the 12% find your spine and try to remember your English lessons at school. A full stop is inert; it ends an idea, separates two and nothing more. If people under 30 (or whatever) think that they are passive aggressive the world is doomed. People are starving and they are worrying about hurt feelings from a full stop.

In normal correspondence I use punctuation carefully and accurately.

But WhatsApp messaging is different. I don't use full stops at the end of a message, and I use exclamation marks more frequently, to ensure that my tone isn't misunderstood.

If I, at 69, can cope with the norms of different types of communication, I'm pretty sure the rest of you can.

You all, as old people, also have aspects of social etiquette that you follow otherwise you might be considered rude. It's rules of social etiquette changing over time.
You don't need a full stop for "clarity" in a whatsapp message because the line break serves as the full stop. If you also add a full stop then you've done it unnecessarily and on purpose so it's often read as abrupt and like you're trying to stop the flow of conversation. People still use full stops in the middle of messages and in other media like emails

Well explained.

Sometimes. It depends. Why ? Please be careful readers, I should have begun with a warning. Sentence ends with a very intimidating question mark.

People are starving, and you're worried about what punctuation young people prefer to use in certain contexts. Sounds like you need to find your spine.

My son told me about this a few weeks ago with his eyes nearly rolling out of his head.

I thought you sent each sentence as a separate message rather than just moving to the next line? Because having your phone pinging 5 or 6 times isn’t at all irritating and likely to cause passive aggressive responses. 😡

I have a friend who is obsessed with language, etymology, grammar etc. He studied it to a very high level and can be pedantic at times. Yet he is the first to say that language and structure develops, as it always has, or we'd still be speaking in Olde English. He would absolutely defend the the absence of a message ending full stop, as a natural development in this context

So get over yourselves. WhatsApp/messaging is relatively new, and has developed it's own systems, which make sense in the WhatsApp environment.

Oh ffs, what bloody next!

You don't need to use a new line for every sentence, and you don't need to drop all punctuation!
It's only the full stop at the end of the message that isn't used.

No they're not. Sentences aren't finished without them and it looks wrong.

Yes, a full stop - particularly at the end of the final sentence of a message - is seen as passive aggressive or angry by younger people.

That's ok. Communication customs change. We don't send work emails with the same formal layout as a business letter of 1975, for example, so we all accept that new norms are created.

A coupon years ago my younger two, late teens, were discussing how moody a friend in a group chat was being. It all seemed to hinge on full stops to express her strop.

I was mystified. I always ended messages with punctuation. Eldest say, "well, yeah, but you also reply to messages correcting our spelling, so we don't apply the general rules to you. But Gran always ends a text as Love From Gran, so you aren't the worst texter in the world just yet "

Nope. I'm quite happy to continue using a full stop at the end of my messages.

We don't need to 'get over ourselves', as your opinion isn't one which matters.

Your title and OP are badly worded and leading to knee jerk reactions throughout this thread. There is no vendetta on full stops in general. Of course they're needed to separate sentences, and continue to be used most of the time in messaging. They're only omitted at the end of a message.

This is classic mountain out of a molehill stuff, with added misinformation.

You can use them if you like, of course. But you need to get over the fact that this development in the use of language and structure is as valid as all the developments that have gone before, and which have contributed to what you consider the 'right' way.

Communication customs change. We don't send work emails with the same formal layout as a business letter of 1975, for example, so we all accept that new norms are created.

Exactly.

It’s not a useful development of language for people to read huge meaning into a small item of punctuation which may be used or omitted quite randomly in informal communications. It’s certainly not useful if a subsection of the population don’t realise that another subsection (in this case young people vs older ones) aren’t following their new code and indeed are unlikely to even know about it.

@ErrolTheDinosaur , but now you do know!

I'm not making a moral judgement on the lack of use of full stops by The Young People (most unlike me, I assure you!) because it's a system that works for them.

They express their snark through punctuation, I roll my eyes and move on.

I know now that young people may infer something that was never meant to be implied, but that’s on them - are they really unaware that older people don’t follow and adopt their latest trend which may or may not persist?
’lol’ was probably invented by one set of ‘young people’ before being derided by the next.🤷‍♀️

They'll grow out of it. Otherwise I can imagine a lot of elderly people in care homes in 2090 getting upset about full stops.

Maybe for those who are not literate. Please note full stop.

Starving people and punctuation aren't even remotely connected.

I really dislike bad punctuation (and spelling). It makes me despair at how people got to adulthood and still don't know how to use commas and full stops.

As an English graduate, it hurts my head to read things without proper punctuation.

I've been browsing other threads in AIBU to gather anecdotal data on full stop usage. It's not good. So brace yourselves, because the habit of dropping the final full stop on short comments is spreading to Mumsnet.

This is something that was very heavily reported by the media a year or two back. I expect your colleague was just telling you as an interesting thing they'd read about the younger generation.

It relates to messaging and not other forms of writing. I don't think Gen Z think full stops are hostile when used in formal letters or magazine articles. People get very excited about it for no real reason.