Favorite word used frequently. 
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@carverofchoice says kids these days donât like âfillerâ words (and punctuation.)
What do you make of this? 
I think they need a 
.
Kids these days make up their own goofy abbreviated words. I would probably need a Kids dictionary or have to use Google translate to understand what theyâre saying.
Oh no, kids love filter words and pointless words. They are constantly making up new âbrain rotâ slang. I actually keep up with it all so that I can use it at family gatherings with my Gen Alpha nieces and nephews and make them all freak out because theyâve only ever heard their peers. Use those words. So it makes them very embarrassed especially in front of their parents, and making them embarrassed is kind of an uncleâs job. (They actually sincerely love it)
But you are correct about punctuation. Punctuation is often considered offensive now. Iâve been studying up on the sociolinguistic reasons for this, and itâs actually really interesting. My initial hypothesis was that a lot of it was caused by Apple, not allowing punctuation on the front screen of their digital keyboard, which made people avoid using punctuation because it was inconvenient and therefore only used when emotional for intentional emphasis. However, apparently thereâs a lot more to the story.
According to some social linguistic research, theyâve found that a lot of the shift came from the way written conversation evolved from an asynchronous interaction to more of a synchronous interaction like regular conversation due to the availability of immediacy of response.
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In the past, the way to end a thought was to use a period. But now, the default, neutral way to end a thought is to send the message. Pressing send is the new period and the chat bubble surrounds the thought to mark it off the way we were taught to use a period. This used to be needed more for writing, but is no longer applicable for those just âchattingâ over social media chats or texts.
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Therefore, adding punctuation is an intentional act that adds a layer of tone.
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The period now adds a tone of finality and seriousness, which is often interpreted as anger or annoyance in a casual context. Think of it in a similar way, to if you are talking verbally to somebody and you end your sentence with verbally saying the word period. Usually if we verbalize the word period in a conversation, it is used in a very exclamatory way with finality, emphasis, or sometimes in anger. So, for example if Iâm talking to you and I just say âIâm coming to your house,â Thatâs fairly neutral and no big deal. But if I instead say the word âperiodâ at the end of then itâs a little awkward. " Iâm coming to your house PERIOD!" That is a little bit more weird and changes the entire tone of the message. That is what the youngsters are hearing when we type a period now. They are hearing us emphatically say the word period On the end of our messages And it changes the entire tone for them, because to them the end of a sentence or thought is just hitting send.
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The ellipsis (.. .) adds a tone of hesitation or unstated meaning, which can be seen as passive-aggressive. For example, "I was just wondering⌠"(Can imply hesitation or a sensitive topic to follow.). âfineâŚâ (This is almost never interpreted as âfine.â It screams âI am not fine, and you should know why.â)
Weâre just old and some of us still type out more than one sentence in a post, so punctuation is legitimately needed. (Not that I always use it completely correctly anyway)
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Thank you for expanding on that, carver. Youâre not perfect, but you are very curious and your knowledge and expertise is wide and deep. 
Itâs apparently becoming common to edit podcast video interviews with a âjump cut filterâ to exclude âtoo longâ pauses, aborted thoughts and filler words.
It makes me feel unkind toward its creator.
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I think itâs not just podcasts that do this editing. I recall some furor last year regarding a major television network and an interview that was edited and released in a manner that many interpreted as biased. Without trying to stray into political territory, Iâll just say that I think this happens quite a lot in various media and for a number of reasons.
The punctuation thing bothers me, though, because I think our written language[1] developed that over time as a means to separate, clarify, and communicate distinct ideas, and we have it and use it for good reasons. When someone is going to communicate in English, that person is essentially entering an agreement to an accepted set of rules for the exchange of information. Casual communication aside (e.g., I understand that SMS and chat messages are frequently âinformalâ exchanges), leaving out punctuation seems to indicate one or more of a number of things, including disregard or disrespect for the language (accepted rules for its use), a failure to understand the audience/recipient/source and especially the intent of the other party/parties, ignorance about how and why the established system works, and apathy and/or laziness.
This all reminds me of reading a few years ago about how Gen Z has âcanceledâ certain emojis because of the way they perceive them, though I havenât ever read any explanation of why some of these people interpret certain emojis in these ways. Their inability or unwillingness to describe the âwhyâ also strikes me as problematic.
I believe that part of communication that some people often fail to recognize is the responsibility of both parties not only to send but also to receive information, and reception isnât (or shouldnât be) a totally passive process. Since communication is a two-way endeavor, itâs important to listen (even figuratively) and comprehend what the other party is saying, and often that involves discerning the intent of the other party. If there is no evidence that the person sending a message has rude/hostile/aggressive/whatever intent when using a (correct) period or even a certain emoji for emphasis or to convey tone, then something else is happening to cause the recipient to interpret the message in that way, and the recipient should try to figure out why that is. (This calls for more self reflection and less self absorption.) I think this part of communication probably isnât being stressed/taught enough, especially to younger generations, who also seem to be lacking in other critical thinking skills.
This isnât really an age thing, either. I see this kind of thing happen all the time right here in the Forum, where even older users (who in the past have commented on their own vast IT experience or whatever) are often quick to reply to a userâs problem with a âsolutionâ that indicates they didnât actually read/comprehend/understand the original problem as stated. Thatâs why I think good follow-up questions are often important before even beginning to formulate an answer.
Iâm confining my discussion to English because thatâs my primary language. âŠď¸
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Oh yeah, Gen Z refers to the initial pause as âthe millenial pauseâ because older generations will press record, then wait a couple of seconds to start saying something. This was a learned response because in the early days of digital recording tech, there was often a noticeable lag between hitting the record button and when the device actually started capturing audio/video, so if you started right away, the first part of what you said/did would be cut off and awkward. That is no longer applicable, but operant conditioning is strong and we still do it. The youngsters have never had to deal with that lag issue, so itâs weird to them that we do it. To them, they start immediately and the lack of lag is now causing a contrasting phenomenon that is joking called the âGen Z Shakeâ where the beginning of the video might be slightly shaky as they are trying to get their phone in a stable position while talking after jostling it from pressing the record button.
As for filler words, there are certainly people editing them out, but my understanding is that itâs not a generational thing, and generally not popular to do so. One recent YouGov poll indicated that younger generations use filler words significantly MORE than older generations, though each group uses different kinds of filler words. For example, younger generations tend to use the words or phrases:
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- you know (or you know what I mean)
- I mean
- literally
- basically
- actually
While older generations will be more likely to say
- uh
- um
Then there is the new weirdness younger females are doing with âVocal Fryâ (I donât like it)
And then the weirdness of how they are chaging to do âupspeakâ at the end of a declarative sentence so it sounds like a question when itâs not. Upspeak (raising your tone at the end of a sentence) used to be solely reserved to make it clear it was a question, but theyâre changing it to not mean that, and that is ridiculous to me.
But yeah, there is an overall âprofessionalâ push to do âtidinessâ editing based on desired style and quality of a podcast to remove verbal clutter to make the core message stand out more clearly. I donât really agree with it, but it does help a lot of ADHD people pay attention better. Some of us ADHD people already speed up podcasts, books, and youtube videos to play at 1.5x-2x speed because the pace of 1x is already too tedious for us. Removing all the clutter noise helps a lot. To be fair, this has long been done for decades. All those shows like 60 minutes, Oprah, Charie Rose, Inside the Actors Studio, Late-night talk shows, they have ALL done this for decades. None of them have ever presented the full interview. They always edit out the junk and the majority of the verbal clutter and present a more polished version. Podcasters are now starting to do something similar, though they are taking it a little more extreme with individual words in some cases, especially if it is a verbal-only medium. Even as someone with ADHD that doesnât like all the clutter, I think what they are doing is overboard. But my understanding is that itâs not a generational thing and may actually be more of the older generations doing it excessively.
I understand what youâre saying. Unfortunately, language always evolves and breaks all rules anyone tries to assign it. Drives OCPD people crazy.
Yeah, I donât really worry about whatâs PC or not. If the 
emoji says joy and is me laughing happily at something, I couldnât care less if someone else thinks itâs cringe. Itâs a good expression for me. They want me to use 
instead to imply âIâm deadâ from something being so humorous or whatever, and I know what they mean when they use it, and sometimes I will use it with people to speak their language, but or 
make more sense to me, especially when I am talking to people closer to my age. Changing the meaning of emojis and symbols is kind of weird.
Haha, I am guilty of this sometimes too. I read or skim fast, miss one tiny word or detail and totally misunderstand a critical piece of information. I blame my ADHD, and hope someone else like @Crease will correct me in those cases. I donât mind being corrected.
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Analog audio tape must blow their frigginâ minds then. A physical device has to torque a reel up to speed so that the actual medium is pulled over the recording head at the proper velocity before whatever you want to record should actually begin. 
Ooh, or start with the stylus right on the groove and then turn on the record player! 
I think itâs funny how that one has been used that way for so long. I mostly associate it with the 1980s, but I understand itâs use in this way goes back even further than that.
Iâm with you on that. There are some other trends in vocalization (singing, in this case) that also really donât appeal to me (and I understand that theyâre not intended to).
Like, Carver? Maybe youâre, like, actually the one whoâs being ridiculous? Like, literally? 
Yeah, a lot of this stuff just makes me 
and is mildly annoying but tolerable. The apathy toward or ignorance about professional communication skills is what really bothers me, though.
I do that because I can still absorb the content at that speed and want to maximize my viewing/listening time. Iâm constantly adding videos to my âWatch laterâ list on YouTube (so that I have something to keep my brain engaged and opportunities to passively learn while Iâm doing treadmill time), and my podcast subscriptions are primarily news-related content that I want to be able to get through quickly to be informed. For me it has nothing to do with tedium or attention deficiencies; Iâm just trying to be efficient with the the time.
I get that, too, and that was on my mind while I wrote my previous post, but I didnât include commentary about that because I was already rambling too much. I fully recognize that this change happens and expect it to happen organically and for good reasons. Catering to the ambiguous and indefinable feelings of a younger generation does not seem like a good reason, and I donât think that does anyone any favors. I learned the rules because communication is important to me and I wanted to be taken seriously, and I donât think thatâs unreasonable at all. While I donât agree with all rules (I have some definite opinions about quotation mark placement in some situations, for example), I think theyâre there to even the playing field and allow clearer communication to happen.
Maybe I should re-read Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Somewhere I have the actual (printed paper!) book that I bought not long after I learned about that from a radio interview with the author. I remember reading it on a plane, and the woman sitting next to me asked me if I was a teacher or something. Nope. Just a nerd. 
(Ooh, look! He wrote some sentence fragments at the end of that one! 
)
I generally donât, either, and I also think thatâs not a good prima facie reason to change the language. Iâll stick by what I said earlier about intent.
I understand that sentiment, too, but I also sometimes look at emojis as word substitutes and often use them that way. Words can change their meanings depending on context and even evolve their definitions over time, so I expect that with emojis as well, especially since I donât always see them as a true representation of human emotion.
Iâve done that. I try not to, but it happens, and then I feel like a bonehead and have a âduh!â moment. This seems to be habit for a lot of people, though: They have their hammers, so everything looks like nails.
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Same as it ever was�
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An execution.
I thought upspeaking oneâs last words might be funny.
Nope.
Also end points: ! ? .
Switch 'em around and change the reading.
I enjoyed your posts.
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I recognized what you were doing when I first read it. It didnât strike me immediately the way some things do, but it wasnât one that I had to go back to later to understand. I just had to linger with that initial read and think about it for a few seconds before it sunk in.
The David Byrne picture just reminded me of a Talking Heads song, so I responded with the first thing that came to mind.
I enjoy your posts, as well!
MFP is not sociable. Every time I see him I say âHi MFPâ and he runs like a rocket across the street. He was here at Weeds & Water for 1 hour and 43 minutes last night.
I know he is trying to wear out my V4, jack up my internet usage by event video uploads to WYZE and kill off my 256GB SD card. 
Bones for MFP tonight unless the possum shows up first.
Small sample of MFP last night:
I want to see one of those events in Captured on Wyze!
No. He uses this to communicate:
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MFP showed up first as usual and got first claim on the bones. Then the other five freeloader cats showed up & got the leftovers.
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