This isn't Twitter. Pack it in with the @, if you'd be so kind

[Habbibu]

Have noticed this lately - and ToadintheHole, I'm going to apologise straight off, because you've just done it to my name, but it's not an attack on you, it's been bugging me for days - lots of @username when addressing someone.

Now, I'm assuming that this has some technical necessity on Twitter (don't touch the stuff, myself), but what's wrong with just username, without the @. If you say my name, I know you're addressing me. I really do.

You're not losing! You are airing a valid opinion because on this forum - at least currently, you never know what evil thoughts you may have stirred up at MNHQ - it serves no purpose.

It may have a genuine purpose in some of the places that Nancy describes (confusing my name is Nancy too ... ), it can just be a convention, a bit like ds, dd and things we 'process' without worrying about it. It's not a convention on MN so it jars a bit with you.

Don't think it's technical, just shorter than typing 'at'... but you must remember that early adopters of all those things were mainly techies of course!

trib- lovely to meet a genuine Nancy! I love your name

Why thank you Captain

But Cap'n - why type "at" at all? Surely simply saying Cap'n tells you I's talking to you?

Lenin - thin ice, lady. Your desertion to the land of the twit has been noted.

(besides, I don't think I get it...)

Hmm. Emoticons. Why am I even on the Internet again?

Hmm, I didn't realise it was an older internet thing. I first came across it on twitter when twitter first started in about... 2005?

I find it irritating because I read it as "At BertieBotts, I thought what you said was really... etc"

Eh? Don't talk AT me, talk TO me! I know it's the internet and typing not talking etc but I like mumsnet as it feels more like a conversation. So @ grates.

I never really minded it on twitter as the name has always made me imagine tiny little messenger birds tweeting merrily and delivering these tiny messages onto everybody's phone, kind of like miniature versions of Harry Potter owls. So lobbing a tiny bird in someone's specific direction (rather than just sending it out at random) fits the @ thing a bit better.

Now you just sound rude. See what too few characters has done to you, eh?

really isnt any worse than humphy wee faces or :-) ;-O etc all of which are in usage on mn. is no biggie.this inference that mn is somehow polluted by @ is funny.all the my very gosh that may be suitable for the hoi polloi on internet,but not mn laydees.......behave

Wot's alt-tab?

annoying wee irk much imo

If someone @'s you, just say "@ right back @ cha"

SM, nowt to do with pollution, it's just so very very unnecessary. Unless there's a software reason. And I will challenge you to ever find a post where i have used a single emoticon, either in the humphy wee face or use of punctuation marks. Had I the power, I would Destroy Them All.

Which would probably not be as dramatic as it sounds.

Bertie, I like your style. Have you read Jasper Fforde? The Footnoterphone and your little @birds share some similarities I think!

hab,unclench stop stamping feeties about inferred challeges.i am making a general post,not you specifically.i have absolutely no idea,and dont much care whether you have ever used wee humphy face and unsurprisingly i wont go off to search.

See, now, SM. Everyone has their things that irk.

i've hardly seen it used, and post here alot.

things might irk but i cant be arsed posting about it.cause it doesn't matter in big scheme of things

Well, no, SM, of course it doesn't. But then MN would be very very quiet if we all only posted about things that mattered.

And I wasn't actually challenging you - it was a joke at myself, and my luddite-like refusal to use the conventions of the modern world. I have yet to clench, tbh. But that's another story.

indeed,too much hun/hugs and gushing would be stultifying