Old people on facebook who use ellipsis in place of periods

Odradek

Why?

Salix Babylonika

Not just old people, everyone over 30.

I don't know why either. One time I asked my mom why she does it and she scratched her chin, looked at the ceiling for a moment, and said "I don't know".

MetaFour

and said "I don't know..."

glennmagusharvey

perhaps it demonstrates a sense of uncertainty about one's actions on the internet

criminalscum

...maybe...

Imipolex G

I find it very tempting to use ellipsis when writing...

I blame William S. Burroughs

Bee

As often as my dad gets distracted mid-sentence, it honestly seems fitting.

Sredni Vashtar

I use it when I want to define a particular tone to a concluding sentence in a paragraph, or to demonstrate a pause where I am struggling for words when used in the middle of a sentence.

Obā-san

also because ur a crotchety ol ferret

Sredni Vashtar

The former is my sad ellipsis, though. I like my sad ellipsis...

Odradek

Sredni Vashtar said:

I use it when I want to define a particular tone to a concluding sentence in a paragraph, or to demonstrate a pause where I am struggling for words when used in the middle of a sentence.

Okay see they do not do that.

They use it when they want to indicate the beginning of a new thought

Princess Alice

I think Myr's talking about people who talk like this...they just use ellipses to separate sentences...I've seen people talk like this before...usually about political stuff...and oftentimes they're vaugely angry and end with exclamation points!!!

Obā-san

yeah

Sredni Vashtar

I have seen that. It's like this weird misunderstanding of the use of ellipses in quotations repurposed for communication. I suppose it's to make up for the fact that Facebook, on a lot of platforms, doesn't really allow for easy paragraph differentiation, where the ellipsis replaces a paragraph break (or the proofreader P).

Odradek

John Steppling does this on his twitter and the comments to his own blogposts too.

Which is weird, you'd think Award Winning Playwright John Steppling would have a cursory knowledge of how English works

Odradek

"Weisman is exactly the typical marketer of this stuff. I glanced at a recent NYTimes article on him (and his new book…seems that dire events only warrant ink if there is a new book being launched) and the Times makes random asides like “scientists estimate../.” without ever telling you which scientists in which study, or anything at all. Just this free floating meme — catch all phrase…..”scientists estimate…”. And then a few examples of poor arab and african countries."

Imipolex G

Central Avenue said:

I think Myr's talking about people who talk like this...they just use ellipses to separate sentences...I've seen people talk like this before...usually about political stuff...and oftentimes they're vaugely angry and end with exclamation points!!!

For some reason I always read this as "what I'm angry about is so outrageous that you should be able to get angry at it too even though I'm apparently leaving stuff out"

MetaFour

Semi-related—Analyze the punctuation in Mark Trail sometime! They never use full stops! Sometimes they use em dashes—But otherwise every declarative sentence gets an exclamation mark! It's a universe where people only communicate in shouts and dramatic pauses!

Bee

Shouts, dramatic pauses, and inexplicable poorly-timed monologues on biology and geology.

glennmagusharvey

People should support climate change...climate change is good because its too cold here...we just had 15 feet of snow in december.......why cant people wake up and see that we need change!!!!!!!  Teh two parties are broken we need Jill Johnson for president!!!!!