why don't people on the internet use question marks to denote interrogative statements anymore.

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is this a relatively recent development

― jbr (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:01 (twenty-one years ago)

The internet makes you lazy

― kate/baby loves headrub (papa november), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:03 (twenty-one years ago)

that said i think the interrobang is pretty cool!?

― jbr (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:04 (twenty-one years ago)

man you gotta press "shift"

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:06 (twenty-one years ago)

i think leaving out the question mark can have a particular rhetorical effect, although i can't quite put my finger on what it is. i only leave it out when i mean to.

― pete b. (pete b.), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:08 (twenty-one years ago)

but why replace it with a period.

― jbr (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I believe it is meant to symbolize the general malaise of fossilizing ennui that has stulitified online communication in this hyper-aware age of information exchange.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:12 (twenty-one years ago)

meh

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:12 (twenty-one years ago)

i mean i'm lazy too; i mostly post in lowercase now. but i'm also curious about whether there's some intended rhetorical effect with the lack-of-question-mark thing, or if ppl just forget.

― jbr (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Pig ignorant fuckers...... sorry........ Pig ignorant fuckers?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:14 (twenty-one years ago)

it's true - older people def don't do it as much

― pete b. (pete b.), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:14 (twenty-one years ago)

*boards bus to hypersexualised society"

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:15 (twenty-one years ago)

leave your question marks at the door

― pete b. (pete b.), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:16 (twenty-one years ago)

The internet is where we all ran away from the uptalkers.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I always read it with a certain weariness. Like, you sorta know the answer already, as if you even cared?

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:31 (twenty-one years ago)

i interpret it as having a level of removal, like saying "here is my question" -- wrapping the question up in a larger declarative thingy.

― jbr (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:35 (twenty-one years ago)

i blame the strokes.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:46 (twenty-one years ago)

what's your point jody

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:48 (twenty-one years ago)

who wants to be a millionaire

― jbr (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:54 (twenty-one years ago)

got milk

― jbr (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I do it when I wouldn't ask the question with question inflection in real life anyway.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 13:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Why do people on the Interweb abandon Capitalization, anyway? I find this perplexing to the Extreme. If anything, I would rather adopt the 18th Century method of Random Capitalisation whenever I can.

― Masonic Cathedral (kate), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 14:42 (twenty-one years ago)

it looks modernist, kate.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Capitalization / Capitalisation? Deliberate? Yeah?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 15:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Jonotton Yeah?

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 15:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Horse? Eighties?

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 15:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I find the dropping of the question mark for questions to be particularly annoying everywhere, not just on the 'net. It seems that a lot of people have just decided that there's no reason for them anymore, or they've forgotten that rhetorical questions are still QUESTIONS. I see it in advertising copy, and I see it on movie posters. (Arnie's The Sixth Day: Are you who you think you are.)

(On another note there's the tagline for the movie Training Day, which is a total RJG-ism: The only thing more dangerous than the line being crossed, is the cop who will cross it.)

Anyhow, in short, I don't think it's a net thing. I think it's a laziness thing, or a good old just-plain-ignorance thing.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

no one asks questions anymore! we make statements!

― lemin (lemin), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 15:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Is that so

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

what you say

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 15:40 (twenty-one years ago)

sorry but that is nothing like a total RJG-ism.

they should have made it "The only thing is the cop.".

― RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 15:40 (twenty-one years ago)

people on the internet do all sorts of things to make the unpacking process more fun? this is just one of them?

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 15:45 (twenty-one years ago)

The internet has made me addicted to the exclamation point!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 16:22 (twenty-one years ago)

YAY!

I think it's important to use question marks. They are fancy.

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 17:30 (twenty-one years ago)

An interrogatory sentence is addressed to another party. If someone is posting on ILX, or on a blog, the author may raise a question in their mind, and write it down, but be uncertain whether they are in fact interrogating someone, or rather declaring their uncertainty.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 17:35 (twenty-one years ago)

We need thought bubbles.

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 17:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Perhaps the real issue is whether it is appropriate to phrase the declaration "I am not certain whether..." in the form of a question.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 17:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm more interested in the reverse phenomenon, such as:

"I thought people still used question marks?"

The sentence on its own is not a question, but the question mark serves as shorthand for "don't they?" or "am I right?" or (I suppose) "innit?" -- but without the force of actually asking that question. It suggests idly wondering more than seeking affirmation.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 17:59 (twenty-one years ago)

(xpost) similar to what Gabbneb's getting at

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 18:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Here's another interesting REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE, from the "what do you look like" ("what do you look like?") thread:

Less talk, more shots.
-- Spencer Chow (spencercho...), February 28th, 2005 4:42 PM. (spencermfi) (link)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

that shit doesn't even rhyme?
-- JaXoN Hole (jaso...), February 28th, 2005 4:49 PM. (JasonD) (link)

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

But here, I think, JaXoN's question mark indicates bafflement more than anything else.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 18:06 (twenty-one years ago)

It better approximates one's oracular delivery if one is particularly deadpan, tired, depressed or uncaring.

― 57 7th (calstars), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

i just assumed the people who did this were stupid, just like all the people on the noise pickle board who only write in capital letters and spell all the words wrong. i had no idea it was on purpose.

― live from kazakhstan, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Because on the Pickle Board it's not on purpose?

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 20:35 (twenty-one years ago)

The explanation based upon speaker and hearer makes good sense, but I'm going to try to explain it in a slightly different way that relies upon characterizations of communication on the Internet that may seem as anachronistic as the information superhighway metaphor or that may point to a distinction that, by now, seems old, namely, that questions on the internet are often asked without pre-established context, or conversational participants may jump in at any time, so presuppositions behind questions are less reliably shared. In asking a question, one assumes that the person to whom the question is addressed shares one's presuppositions in asking it, but this isn't necessarily the case when one declares one's uncertainty regarding the propositional content of the question. (This is debatable. Try embedding the propositional content P of a leading question in the frame I wonder if P. If A asks B, I wonder if he stopped beating his wife, must A and B accept that B accepts that the referent of he used to beat his wife? Possibly.) So leaving off the question mark may be a way of hedging, not only about the semantic context, i.e., formal presuppositions of the propositional content of the question, but also about the pragmatic context, e.g., if anyone who sees the question will be interested in answering. (I think this is essentially the same explanation gabbneb gave. It was interesting to me because I think it might be related to a phenomenon called presupposition projection that is studied by semanticists.)

― flaky nerd, Wednesday, 2 March 2005 19:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I ignored the distinction I was trying to observe: instead of A asks B, I meant if A says to B.

― youn, Wednesday, 2 March 2005 20:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Why doesn't some ILM posters has no verb tense?

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 2 March 2005 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

WHICH OF THESE SHOULD I PUT IN SAMMICH (Fat Anarchy on Airtube)
WHAT YOU DO ON DAY OFF (cutty)

ALSO WHY DO PEOPLE WHO WRITE THERE LEAVE OUT WORDS

AND WHY DO THEY THINK ALL CAPS IS FUNNY

ITS NOT

― live from kazaskhstan, Wednesday, 2 March 2005 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd like to point out that my statement above does indeed rhyme, which is why I followed JaXoN's post with: It doesn't?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 2 March 2005 21:04 (twenty-one years ago)

WHO THE FUCK IS YOU

― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 2 March 2005 21:51 (twenty-one years ago)

(also, at least link to the threads, jerkoff)

― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 2 March 2005 21:55 (twenty-one years ago)

take the internet more seriously, people!

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Wednesday, 2 March 2005 21:58 (twenty-one years ago)

why don't they

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 2 March 2005 21:59 (twenty-one years ago)

take the internet people more seriously!

― Aaron A., Thursday, 3 March 2005 00:18 (twenty-one years ago)

five months pass...

It takes a thousand ants to make an ant sandwich? I can't even catch one? I shoulda been a bankah?
http://images-partners.google.com/images?q=tbn:zwuMo9_6Q_cJ:www.audricstoys.nl/images/toons_and_comic/pink_panther/Aardvark-cuTN.jpg

― Draw Tipsy, ya hack. (dave225.3), Thursday, 18 August 2005 11:09 (twenty years ago)

I think that abandoning capitalization is sort of like wearing a lot of hair gel and carefully crafting it to look "messy." It's an intentional method of posturing that you just "don't care." You are "easy going." Who has time for the shift key? Please, there's a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!!! show tonight. Have to get ready. Next, hitting up the party with that girl from MySpace.

― Mickey (modestmickey), Thursday, 18 August 2005 12:50 (twenty years ago)

two years pass...

DEVELOPING: 2E18 1 INVERTED INTERROBANG 2005-Nov-04 Accepted 2007-Apr-27 Stage 6

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Monday, 27 August 2007 19:20 (eighteen years ago)

I do it when the question, as it sounds in my head, does not actually have question intonation.

I thought that was pretty much why everyone did it?

― Melissa W, Monday, 27 August 2007 19:48 (eighteen years ago)

it's funnier

http://m.assetbar.com/uua3hN643.gif

― Jordan, Monday, 27 August 2007 19:50 (eighteen years ago)

Thats my fave Achewood :D

― Trayce, Monday, 27 August 2007 23:04 (eighteen years ago)

Remember in like seventh grade when you could tell people who were good at the internet because they AIMed in complete sentences and avoided the use of smileys and LOLs? It's been so exciting to watch that completely turn on its head

― A B C, Monday, 27 August 2007 23:08 (eighteen years ago)

but why

― blueski, Monday, 27 August 2007 23:08 (eighteen years ago)

i remember my irc full sentence with period days hahaha
that did not last v long at all

― rrrobyn, Monday, 27 August 2007 23:23 (eighteen years ago)

Remember in seventh grade when you'd never heard the word "internet," because apparently you are old?

― nabisco, Monday, 27 August 2007 23:23 (eighteen years ago)

why becuz it look intersting

― strgn, Monday, 27 August 2007 23:39 (eighteen years ago)

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