Why. Misused punctuation seems to be a trend?

[AmigoJack]

(This topic's subject is an example and not what I would choose as correct punctuation.) In the past months I discovered people starting to use wrong punctuation more and more:

• Using question marks for sentences that are clearly not a question, i.e. "I don't understand?" or "This is bad?"
• Using dots for sentences that are clearly a question, i.e. "Can someone please help." or "What should I do."

I'm surprised to see this happening at the same time online in boards using English, and also in German e-mails. It just started out of the blue and by multiple persons, as if it's a hype.

Did you experience the same? In which language? Do you have an explanation? Why do people stop following a standard and all of a sudden want to put a new meaning into it (i.e. "I used question marks to express my confusion")? Are people becoming idiots even faster than in the past?

[david63]

I don't think that this is anything new - it has been happening for quite some time.

I think that one of the main reasons is that these days kids at school are not taught formal grammar and it is a case of "if you can understand what someone is writing then it is OK" and then when you add "text speak" into the mix anything goes!

[thecoalman]

Hello Mr. Brogna, my 7th grade English teacher. I still have nightmares about sentence diagrams.

[*]Using question marks for sentences that are clearly not a question, i.e. "I don't understand?" or "This is bad?"

I don't know if it's grammatically correct (and don't really care) but I often see this used when someone is questioning the statement.

"Don't do that, it is bad!"

"This is bad?"

[Mick]

Text speak is pretty much accepted as the norm these days and I think that’s where a lot of badly written language and bad habits come from. In texting I sometimes have difficulty deciding if the other party has finished with the lack of full stops. But at least Generation Z are reading and typing.

There’s no need for text speak anymore as we can write messages as long as we want up to 65k characters on WhatsApp.

[warmweer]

There’s no need for text speak anymore as we can write messages as long as we want up to 65k characters on WhatsApp.

and give FB access to all you messages (and alias and phone number).
There are other messengers like WhatsApp with the same functionalities but without the privacy concerns (for now at least).

[Mick]

For example

[thecoalman]

Text speak is pretty much accepted as the norm these days and I think that’s where a lot of badly written language and bad habits come from.

Bad habits or just another evolution? (Is this one of those questions AmigoJack is referencing?)

Languages evolve, a few years back there was that story of those two AI bots communicating in English that had created their own language based on the English they knew. The examples were gibberish but it was efficient for the bots, the thought occurred to me at the time that it was similar to what humans do with text speak.

Text speak has a foothold but most of it will probably die off because keyboards will die off.

[AmigoJack]

keyboards will die off

How to enter passwords then? Let alone source code? Using a touch screen that easily costs you 10 times as much time and still is quite imprecise? Alexa? What about blind people and those who're able to type without looking at it (which needs haptic feedback you don't have with anything other than a keyboard)?

[Mick]

It seems lately here’s a horrible trend to mispronounce words on platforms like the BBC, for example, who should know better. For example, pronouncing here as hair, library as libary and killed as kilt, there are tons and tons more of course. Then there’s the awful uptalk (ughh!) I wonder how much of this is also attributed to text speak or different teaching methods?

[Toxyy]

I think that one of the main reasons is that these days kids at school are not taught formal grammar

I can assure that formal grammar is taught, the average student is just unwilling to take it seriously enough and forgets most of it after the test.

[thecoalman]

How to enter passwords then? Let alone source code?

Face recognition, thumbprints, voice recognition... chip implant?

Using a touch screen that easily costs you 10 times as much time and still is quite imprecise? Alexa? What about blind people and those who're able to type without looking at it (which needs haptic feedback you don't have with anything other than a keyboard)?

I'm thinking more along the lines of what is around the corner with AI driven language recognition. This was the fundamental hurdle when they built Watson. Just so it's clear, when I say language recognition I'm not referring to just recognizing words but understanding context and meaning of sentences. It's gong to be a while before the power of Watson is mainstream but it's coming.

You won't have to worry about that programming anyway because the AI will do it.

[Forex Station]

It's been like this since the late 90's

[HiFiKabin]

The think I hate is wear people use a correctly spelled word incorrectly in there writing. Its somethink that really annoys me but I have the ideal that it will continue. (sic)

(one of my SiL is always doing it)

[3Di]

I hate anything that is not written correctly, I myself have difficulty expressing myself correctly in English but I try to give the best of myself and what I have learned on my own, without schools. However, I read well and I catch errors at the first reading, I hate those who think everything is due and especially if they do not express themselves, being native speakers, very correctly. At that point I have only one choice, to ignore them. Which is better and more comfortable for me. But not always...

[warmweer]

Aym not worit a bowe tit. In gli shis eezi.