Since the marketing department has arbitrarily sorted me into the Gen X category, all I can say is…I…use ellipses…all the…time, Mr. Spock…
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This does have its place and is proper English, but it can be taken the wrong way. Apparently younger people read “Thanks…” as “Thanks 
”
Usually this is a sign of run on sentences, like what happens on sentences like this one, which arguably should be two or three separate sentences. Some people use these within a sentence, as an aside, where others may use parentheses. I’m not sure if this is proper English, but I’ll allow it. However, my understanding is that “repeated commas” mean repeated consecutively. I have seen many the consecutive comma, and it always sets my teeth on edge.
See my comment above about ellipses. If “Thanks…” means “Thanks ”, then “Thanks.” means “Thanks :(”
My dad (Silent Generation) does this. I’m not sure why. I don’t know if he thinks it makes his writing look more official, or if he can’t be bothered to find the Shift key and just goes for all caps instead of no caps.
I (late GenX) don’t know why anyone should care about this, and not only because not caring about things is GenX’s thing. Some people have very strong opinions about the “two spaces after a period” thing, but mostly in formal writing.
Many of these could be that Boomers (or whoever) don’t know the difference between formal and informal writing, so they can’t code switch properly. They think “informal writing” means inter office memos, so they are baffled by writing that is truly informal. So, they come across as that one kid on the playground who talks like this:
ATTN FELLOW CHILDREN:
HOW ARE YOU DOING???
WARMEST RGRDS,
BILLY
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Just speaking for myself, whether I’m happy to hear from someone in writing or in person is entirely contingent on whether I like them and I find no profit in being bothered by how they do or don’t speak.
To be clear though, my gripe is with any implication that because some “boomers” do an ageist thing that it’s a good argument for younger people to also do that ageist thing. I have no objection to the article that’s the subject of Cory’s original post, which focuses instead on some interesting linguistic analysis.
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I know, right…I guess that means I’m not a proper Gen Xer…whatever, indeed!
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I have to say, as someone who does have to write good and proper for part of my job… I care a hell of a lot less about doing that in other places. I like to be clear, but I’m not going over posts here with a fine tooth comb, because it’s not formal writing for me. I do tend towards a more formal style, but I think we need to acknowledge that there are very different venues for our writing.
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In German, all nouns are capitalized, regardless of whether or not they are proper names.
The more random capitalization seems to be an attempt to mimic the style of the US Declaration of Independence. When used today I regard it as a marker for right-wing loons.
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I’m not sure what it is, but I don’t think it’s any kind of conscious style choice
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I misread that as “God, I found a fucking typo!”
I am not on form…
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Or are you?
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I have a client who sends me emails that are 6 or more lines of text, without a single punctuation mark in the whole thing. It takes me about three times as long to read them, and my brain hurts afterwards.
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Thank you @GulliverFoyle for that gem…
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I’m still not getting what repeated commas are. Never heard that term.
Is that like, this?
Oh wow, when I typed two commas just now after “like,” they’re there in my typing box, but they get corrected to only one in the preview box.
Screen grab:
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It’s a punctuation error so egregious that Discourse doesn’t even allow it
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Dude, don’t get me started with comma errors!
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I see that I should have clarified that my personal perception of “repeated” commas does NOT mean one immediately right after another, like you just demonstrated.
I meant as in:
“Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and that one other guy went down the street.”
It’s a pity someone seems to have taken my initial comment rather needlessly personally.
You’re my bud, but it would be hella boring if we agreed on everything all the time.
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Ah, thanks. There’s probably a name for that kind of comma.
And I guess the last one (optional in many minds – including yours, I see!) is the “Oxford Comma” (about which I agree with Vampire Weekend).
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I’m solidly GenX, and I’ll only discontinue my use of ellipses and my Oxford commas once I’m dead.
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Oxford comma, FTW. It removes confusion, ambiguity, and misunderstanding.
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@Melizmatic, are you okay?
ETA: Death, the final ellipsis…
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