Emails and Texts and IMs -- Oh My!
"'I blame all the emails and text messages,' people say, when you talk about the decline in punctuation standards... 'I write quite differently in emails,' people say, with a look of inspired and happy puzzlement -- a look formerly associated only with starry-eyed returnees from alien abduction. 'Yes, I write quite differently in emails, especially in the punctuation. I feel it's OK to use dashes all the time, and exclamation marks. And those dot, dot, dot things!'" (Truss 179)
Oy vey. Internet punctuation. Surely that's an oxymoron, right? It's cringe-worthy how horribly people write on the internet, where they feel they can let go of those strict grammar rules we were all supposed to have been taught in school. The strict confines of capitalization and punctuation just float away into nothingness for most of us. Personally, I am excluded from that list. It bothers me when I forget to capitalize or use the incorrect punctuation. But that's just me.
However, I do (I will admit) write emails differently than I write mostly everything else. When I write quick emails to my parents or friends, I try to at least use the correct punctuation, but don't normally bother with capitalizing. And then it's always a struggle for me to try to write properly when I'm trying to email one of my teachers or a company and I'm trying not to look like a complete idiot. And I always try twice as hard when I'm writing an email to one of my English teachers, because I feel like they judge me twice as hard because I don't use correct spelling or grammar.
Oy vey. Internet punctuation. Surely that's an oxymoron, right? It's cringe-worthy how horribly people write on the internet, where they feel they can let go of those strict grammar rules we were all supposed to have been taught in school. The strict confines of capitalization and punctuation just float away into nothingness for most of us. Personally, I am excluded from that list. It bothers me when I forget to capitalize or use the incorrect punctuation. But that's just me.
However, I do (I will admit) write emails differently than I write mostly everything else. When I write quick emails to my parents or friends, I try to at least use the correct punctuation, but don't normally bother with capitalizing. And then it's always a struggle for me to try to write properly when I'm trying to email one of my teachers or a company and I'm trying not to look like a complete idiot. And I always try twice as hard when I'm writing an email to one of my English teachers, because I feel like they judge me twice as hard because I don't use correct spelling or grammar.
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