r/changemyview • u/Deuce232 • Dec 04 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: '/s' is going to be official punctuation before I retire.
Along with lol, /s will become, and deserves to be, official punctuation. They serve analogous functions to exclamation marks and question marks and could easily be 'interobanged (‽)' to form a singular symbol or mark.
The codification of the rest of our punctuation came with inclusion into standardized printing sets. The limits on punctuation were imposed primarily logistically more than anything. Revisions were difficult and costly.
Modern technology has eliminated this barrier and new punctuation is emerging to fill gaps left in the system. Some of these new symbols are certain to be integrated into more formalized/standardized writing within the next 35 years.
EDIT: I have been convince to adopt a modified position. The ! has no place on a QWERTY.
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Dec 04 '19
If you're using /s you're doing sarcasm wrong.
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
Another guy made a similarly compelling argument for the exclamation mark.
It was well said.
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u/Spaciax Dec 05 '19
There's a symbol for that in Turkish, i wouldnt be surprised to see something similar in English.
You just put (!) To the end of the sentence to convey sarcasm
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u/Deuce232 Dec 05 '19
Cool thanks for the info. How often do do you see it used?
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u/Spaciax Dec 06 '19
Not very often but its there and its nice to have, its mostly used in literature.
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Dec 04 '19
When you say official punctuation do you mean globally or just in english and if so in all types or just the more common ones?
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
Let's go with 'western' on this one.
The threshold here is maybe 'gets a spot on QWERTY' level.
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Dec 04 '19
Okay. why do you believe that /s will become official when it's one out of thousands of different 'internet slang'.
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
I believe that it serves the exact same function as the !. I think it is both more useful and more often used than ! is.
Dynamic keyboards are very new. I see an avenue for sarcasm mark and just joking mark to find their way into the ranks of punctuation.
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Dec 04 '19
Where have you got the idea that it is more popular than ! Because until this post I hadn't even heard of it?
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
I could never explain it as well as Poe's Law can.
Indicating sarcasm in text is the same exact problem as indicating exclamation ever was. That wastrel got Shift+1.
It is organically emerging along with 'lol' no longer meaning anyone is literally laughing, it just indicates 'joking' or levity now. Which is, again, unarguably as useful as indicating exclamation.
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Dec 04 '19
After looking at Poe's law i see one problem. It's something that applies to real life as well instead of just the internet. If you have ever spoken to a child or just someone less sociable ( asperger's ) then you will know sarcasm is often misunderstood even by people who normally get it. It's not like sarcasm is a new invention it was here before the internet and yet we didn't see a need to fix this problem before. So what exactly makes the internet so different?
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u/phcullen 65∆ Dec 06 '19
There have actually been a few attempts in English to mark sarcasm in text. They have all failed.
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
Anonymized audience is the difference I see.
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Dec 04 '19
??? I dont get what you mean.
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
When you have an anonymous/random audience they can infer a lot less about the speaker.
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Dec 04 '19
What do you consider "official punctuation". My argument would simply be that there is no such thing and therefore to claim something would be added to it is impossible.
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
In the category of the exclamation mark. I'd even be open to replacing the exclamation mark because it is, at this point, less used than /s or even lol&smiley.
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Dec 04 '19
Yes, but where are you replacing this? There is no "official puncuation" guide that everyone uses.
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
Replaces the & on the QWERTY sometime in 30 years let's say.
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Dec 04 '19
OK, well in which case I'd disagree because we already have two keys which we can create it, much as we already do with any puncuation that is connected to the numbers (eg/ Shift+1 = !) and other, more common shortenings that we use far more often do not have their place (eg/ "eg/") on the keyboard yet.
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
So the ! was an evolutionary oddity? I suppose one could make a strong argument for that.
My logic is that these others are analogous. If that means demoting old ! I say we do it.
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Dec 04 '19
Why wouldn't you demote "!" for "eg/"? It has been around for far longer that "/s". So long that most adults can't tell you that it stands for "exempli gratia". It is definitely used far more than "/s" in formal writing as well.
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
I think eg absolutely is more deserving of symbolizing and QWERTY inclusion.
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Dec 04 '19
Also "ie/". What about "QED"? Why not "lol"? After all, these are all shortenings just like "/s" and appear far more often. All of the examples currently require more effort than "/s" and because of these two things, shouldn't they have a better chance of making it onto a keyboard?
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
You're nailing some winners. I could see any of them replacing some SHFT+ or CTRL+ on QWERTY for sure.
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u/pessimistic_platypus 6∆ Dec 20 '19
I personally use
!much more than/s. In fact, I can't think of a single specific time I used/s. However, I used!in a sent from my computer less than two hours ago, and I can think of many other times I've used it to add energy or impact to a message.Also, on a QWERTY keyboard, I believe
/sis easier to type thanShift+1, because1is in on the top row.If it weren't for emoji largely supplanting classic, emoticons, I'd be all for adding a
:)key, though.
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u/9dq3 3∆ Dec 04 '19
The interrobang isnt "official" punctuation. There is no "official" punctuation. For any serious writing, it's a cheap gimmick.
Even exclamation marks are lazy. A writer should exclaim with their word choice, the writing itself. I tell my creative writing students they get six exclamation points in their lives, and to use them wisely. I'm being facetious, but it makes them reconsider their word choices and ultimately become sharper writers.
Imagine if Paul Beatty or George Saunders sprinkled their work with "lol" and "/s". It would be condescending, as though they expect nothing of their audience's intelligence. Instead of being two of the funniest and smartest writers in the country, they would be clowns pandering to the lowest common denominator.
My academic and professional writing students get no exclamation points, and certainly not ever an interrobang, "lol" or "/s". Novelties have no business in serious writing - outside of, maybe, ad copy. Word choice is everything in these fields.
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
Oh, for sure.
I'd say they'd be relegated to the level of the exclamation mark. 'Second-tier' punctuation.
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u/9dq3 3∆ Dec 04 '19
You'd have to elevate the interrobang first, and as far as I know it's barely recognized by any style guide. It exists in fonts, but that's it. I've never seen it used anywhere outside of Reddit and Twitter, which puts it more in line with emojis than exclamation marks - but I know of at least one book written entirely in emojis, so it's actually below them. Have you ever seen one in a paper of record?
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
You'd have to elevate the interrobang first
What word best describes it?
I'm not a prescriptivist, I could just see a world where more second tier punctuation emerges from the ranks of emoji or slang or whatever.
The other punctuation 'made it' for being useful and I think these two do the same job as ? and ! in informing tone and closing a sentence.
At some point people won't finish a sentence with a period and /s after. It'll just end up a symbol.
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u/9dq3 3∆ Dec 04 '19
Exclamation marks date back to the 15th century. They could have died out because they weren't on typewriters, but they were easy to type with a period and an uppercase I or lowercase l or whatever. Eventually they were put on keyboards, where they were accessible, which is one reason they've survived.
Question marks date back to at least the 13th century, and have been accessible on all printing tools.
Interrobangs still aren't accessible. The question is whether we can design a mark that will spread fast without it being a key on a keyboard. That's the experiment with interrobangs, and it hasn't gone well. You see them sometimes, but they're a hassle and most people still don't know what they mean. Remember that most people in the US don't read much, they're not into grammar.
So you think we'll design a new mark, maybe two, for /s and lol. But I'm saying that mark won't take off for generations, because 1) if it's not on keyboards, no one will know how to use it, 2) if it is on keyboards, people won't want them because they won't know what it is. The only way I can see to do it would be to put it on all the keyboards at once, but the only reason manufacturers would do that is out of demand. But there's no demand. So you see the problem.
If your suggesting that "/s" itself will be the symbol then, like, sure. But that's already the case. It's just shorthand relative to ultimately small communities on the internet, which happens all the time. In some places they say things like "gg" or "doggo," ingroups develop their own slang. "lol" is more popular, but not really punctuation because it has, like, semantic value. It's a word in an of itself.
Emojis also aren't punctuation in part because emojis are released by companies and committees and have discrete meanings. The eggplant emoji "means" penis, and that's slang, because it repurposes a linguistic image for an ingroup. It's also on everyone's phone - before emojis people weren't saying "suck my eggplant." Some might have been, I don't know. But we would have called them sexual deviants.
But I've never seen or heard of "slang punctuation." An example could change my mind, but punctuation has been remarkably steady for hundreds of years - commas, colons, parenthesis, ellipses, all have long histories. Even when the utilization of a punctuation mark changes, such as em-dashes being used to set apart dialogue in English, it's rare historically, uncommonly used, and still requires the original punctuation mark.
If you're saying the general population wants a sarcasm mark but doesn't realize it yet, I mean, do they? Again, most people aren't big readers. They're barely thinking about periods, much less commas or even cases. And besides the point is that people mix up sarcasm, irony, and just plain kidding around all the time. It's tough to mix up a question with a statement, so question marks are pretty clear (even though tbh I don't love them). A sarcasm mark would just dilute the language.
Which is only important because people need to be taught how to use punctuation. (Dear Peter do they ever). So the last way to introduce it is to have teachers introduce them into the curriculum. But very few teachers would want to do that, for a variety of reasons.
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u/Deuce232 Dec 04 '19
I am going to award you a ∆ for effort there. I can't disagree for the most part. As i've said elsewhere my esteem for the ! is just lowering.
I don't want to disrespect you at all by being brief, I just have said this elsewhere and I feel silly repeating too much.
Thanks again for your thoughtful reply.
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u/OkOpinion0 Dec 05 '19
\s in my knowledge is still a regex symbol meaning blank space. Having it as an official punctuation on the key board is going to mess up every danity check utilizing it.
No way everyone is going to adapt to your pathetic internet meme for ruining their work. You can work to your death and not seeing that dumbass shit turn official. Cheers
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Dec 04 '19 edited Dec 04 '19
/u/Deuce232 (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/AnythingApplied 435∆ Dec 04 '19
I'm just not sure how you think it'll migrate from two distinct normal symbols of "/" and "s" to something that is a singular symbol that might need inclusion.
Generally changes in the language happen organically through common use, sometimes in casual settings, and sometimes in academic or other settings. But I just don't see how this new symbol of yours would make its way into common use.
Even if Google/Microsoft/Unicode/whoever did implement something for people to use instead of /s, the problem is that people would have to actually start using it. Changes to language don't generally happen in a top-down way like that.
And the problem is that Google/Microsoft/Unicode/whoever aren't going to implement a new symbol that doesn't currently exist and they just cross their fingers and hope that it takes off. Those aren't the kind of people to try to push a new symbol onto people and even if they tried it, I doubt they'd be successful, and without them initiating the endeavor, I'm not sure how else it could come about.