I keep confusing hermeneutics and heuristics, all the time, but thanks for asking.
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I see that four in a row in such an instance is considered OK by some.
My view on that is… .
What I’m opposed to is an ellipsis that’s a bunch o’ dots. . . . . . . . .
Incidentally, the edit window here automatically reformats all non-three-consecutive-dot ellipses to exactly three consecutive dots.
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My statement though was based on @anon3072533’s conditional. If his hypothesis, that the comma behavior was a result of age-related vision problems, then making fun of them is ageist or ableist. This is pretty much true by definition.
I read text created on devices by young people quite a lot as part of my job, and while it sometimes makes me cringe a little, I understand the limitations of the medium and it would never occur to me to write a snarky article poking fun at this or any other group trying to work within those limitations. People do have some responsibility for the decision to use the phone when other devices are available, or for a decision to carry habits (like not using punctuation) over to regular writing.
Slow your roll. They’re not remotely alike.
“I I I I I I I I I I”
“I don’t know why you did that, so I’ll make fun of you.”
“, , , , , , , , , ,”
“I don’t know why you did that, so I’ll make fun of you.”
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If he’s right about that and not merely speculating, and if there is no other explanation to it than presbyopia, and if presbyopia only affects Boomers, then you’d be right. But none of that is true, and you’re full of shit.
I know it’s not presbyopia. My glasses are so thick they look like a jeweler’s loupe, and I’ve never done that even once.
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Gotta love Christmastime.
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I’m suprised not to see people talking about how a lot of this is also the result of the rise of voice recognition software…
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That leads me to note that McCulloch (author of the linked article in Wired) says that “Boomerspeak” is actually more characteristic of one generation older than the Baby Boom.
Hmm, the Silent Generation used telegrams. And most of the printed telegrams I’ve seen in movies or photographs were in capital letters (not all were, of course, they could even be hand-written out, but I think maybe the majority were typed in all-caps? At least that’s the impression I’ve always had of telegrams, and a google search for images shows many were typed in all-caps.)
It seems to me there’s a strong parallel between telegrams and texting—both are/were used for their speed of delivery, and generally kept short due to cost and the limitations of the medium.
Do you think you could ask your dad if he sees any relation/similarity between texts and telegrams? And if that might possibly be why he uses all caps when he texts? I’d be curious what he might say.
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There is no boomer.
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Off topic:
Just for the record, that would be a (for the record, cis-gendered) “her”. No offense taken, of course.
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Sorry sorry sorry! I usually try to be pretty careful about that, but it is the holiday season, when we are all apt to say things we regret later, , , , , , , , , ,
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Yes, telegrams were all caps. But I’ve always maintained that it’s tweets that are the telegrams of today…at least, before they doubled the character limit.
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Oh, it just dawned on me that the quote you were replying to said “typing in all caps” and I made an assumption that you meant that your dad texts in all caps.
Maybe he doesn’t text and you meant typed letters or long-form writing, which would be a whole different thing from what I was thinking about.
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He rarely texts, and only occasionally writes emails, but when he does it’s in all caps. He definitely got that from long form correspondence.
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random mid-sentence capitalization, *
This example from the article:
“say hi to Joe and the kids for me, love! You.”
How is capitalizing ‘Joe’ wrong?
I see the other problems but capitalizing a persons name is never wrong regardless of media.
Might as well dissect Boomerspeak while we can. As we boomers age and phones become the primary means of electronic (or any) communication, us boomers won’t be able to read the screens, navigate the interfaces, or, in fact, even be able to get the darn screens to register our touch.
Wait a few years and you won’t have to hear from us at all!
Except for those unfortunate enough to be walking across our lawns.
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This. Any form of informal text (which is basically anything other than an email to my boss) gets marked up like it’s verbal for me. I’m not above using any text mechanism that gets across my inflections or emphasis.
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I’m a few years into being a millennial vs. gen x and I do almost all of these “boomer” com style things, except for the all caps, which I will generally only do for effect.
That said, I’m also extremely irritated by vocal styles and many phrases that are now associated with millennials. I just happen to find vocal fry, uptalk, etc to be extremely annoying to listen to. It sounds like the modern version of people from the 80s saying stuff like “gag me with a spoon!” I try my best to judge people on content vs delivery, though.
I realize this is about large scale data sets and not specific subsets or edge cases, but I always feel a little alienated when it is framed that bias towards newer styles of speech and accent is either “old” or conservative. But I also don’t spend a lot of time around old people or conservatives, so I don’t have much of an ideological / culture wars axe to grind. I lean pretty far left, and I still hate this stuff!
(Not trying to make it all about me… it’s just kind of interesting, but also a bit of a head scratcher at times like I wonder if I’m not a good enough liberal somehow)
To each their own!
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Twitter’s best known Boomerspeak parody:
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only Zuul
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