The “full stop” no longer means that the sentence is complete or over. It now depicts that you are not sincere, hasty and a dreadful ‘texter’.
The full stop treatment is not the same anymore! According to a latest study regarding the full stop treatment, the symbol used to convey a period, is now backed by science as a way of saying “screw you”!!
Moreover, experiments also revealed that the people react to a single word text in a much different way in the presence or absence of a full stop.
TEXT MESSAGES THAT END WITH A FULL STOP ARE APPARENTLY SEEN AS LESS SINCERE, ACCORDING TO A 2016 STUDY.
Full Stop Treatment
Celia Klin, Professor of Psychology of Binghamton University further explained:
In formal writing, such as what you’d find in a novel or an essay, the period is almost always used grammatically to indicate that a sentence is complete.
With texts, we found that the period can also be used rhetorically to add meaning.
Specifically, when one texter asked a question (e.g., I got a new dog. Wanna come over?), and it was answered with a single word (e.g., yeah), readers understood the response somewhat differently depending if it ended with a period (yeah.) or did not end with a period (yeah).
This was true if the response was positive (yeah, yup), negative (nope, nah) or more ambiguous (maybe, alright).
We concluded that although periods no doubt can serve a grammatical function in texts just as they can with more formal writing — for example, when a period is at the end of a sentence — periods can also serve as ‘textisms’, changing the meaning of the text.”
The Changing trends
Writing trends have changed a lot. Emoticons, excessive use of exclamation marks or bad spelling may horrify the “punctuation pedants” but these signs don’t show dis respect for language.
According to the newly published research from the same team Klin said:
“In contrast with face-to-face conversation, texters can’t rely on extra-linguistic cues such as tone of voice and pauses, or non-linguistic cues such as facial expressions and hand gestures.
In a spoken conversation, the cues aren’t simply add-ons to our words; they convey critical information.
A facial expression or a rise in the pitch of our voices can entirely change the meaning of our words.
It’s been suggested that one way that texters add meaning to their words is by using ‘textisms’ – things like emoticons, irregular spellings (sooooo) and irregular use of punctuation (!!!).”
So get ready for more emoticons and abbreviations cropping up the time!!
Via Independent