New Punctuation Denounced Forever

Older people are frequently irritated that young people are willing to forgo correct punctuation in emails. Young people reply that with the quantity and speed of our electronic communication, it has become a forgivable convention to make this omission, because everyone, even if they do not fully approve of it, is guilty of it.

Aware of the omission, many of us have begun to use the absence of a mark as its own kind of punctuation mark. When I realized this I immediately found it quite disgusting and stopped doing it, because the principle being unstated was what made it possible. An example

Dear lovely lover blah blah blah,

things have been so great lately. I am out of breath from walking up the hill. Or is it because I love you

Any number of things might have been said. People on intimate terms are more likely to address emails than give salutations, unless they are feeling a flamboyant egoism. The point is, there is no question mark in the sentence above. It tapers into a moment of silent contemplation. If one were more eloquent or had more time, perhaps the thought might have been finished (what is the connection between your love for me and my lungy-lungs, my love?), but if you are on intimate enough terms to ask the favor of thinking you as profound, you can leave it at that.

This punctuation mark, which is a bit of negative space, is temporally bound. It can only exist recognizably after enough of them have built up, but it will stop existing when the whole world reads my blog, or realizes on their own, what is going on. Now that I have mentioned it you might find it gross, because it is a gross thing to think of something that relies on the cute little excuses we grant each other becoming a mass convention.

In any case, if you do it to me I will notice, and when others do it to you, you will notice.

Comments

[Ruth]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Ruth

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[Emily]

I miss you.

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