How using a full stop could give away your age
Noël Wolf, a linguistic expert, said young people – aged from 13 to 28 – were rewriting the rules to 'shift' the meaning of inverted commas, quotation marks, ellipses, full stops and the dash.
Using a full stop could actually be conveying a blunt tone, which Generation Z avoida, she told The Telegraph.
Traditional usage of various punctuation marks has now been upended, with quotation marks used to imply irony or sarcasm rather than speech and full stops used to convey passive-aggressive bluntness instead of the neutral sentence ender.
Meanwhile, ellipses are used to suggest awkwardness or hesitation and commas and dashes repurposed to signal emphasis and to mimic spoken language rather than a pause in the sentence.
Ms Wolf cited writers' varying approaches to punctuation use, such as James Joyce and Cormac McCarthy, and their minimal use of punctuation to 'set a particular tone'.
'It's only natural, then, for contemporary writers to embrace this evolving function of punctuation and use it to convey more than just a pause or breath in a sentence,' she added.
The language expert also pushed back on the idea that these practices are eroding grammar, instead arguing that it can be more 'emotionally precise'.
It comes after it was revealed the semicolon could be dying out after its use has more than halved in two decades, according to language app Babbel.
Young people who do not know how to use semicolons were shown as being behind the decline.
Ms Wolf added that Gen Z is one of the 'main forces behind this shift in punctuation use' after they 'mainstreamed' new meanings on social media, but claimed it does not signal grammar is 'being destroyed'.
She explained that having grown up largely on digital platforms, young people need to use punctuation 'as a way to convey the intended tone of a written short-form message when the tone may not be obvious'.
'Social media is, without question, the main driver behind this evolution,' Ms Wolf continued.
'Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, X and messaging apps have shaped a kind of informal digital writing style that prioritises tone, brevity, and relatability.
'In these spaces, punctuation becomes a crucial stand-in for the cues we'd normally get from tone of voice or facial expression.'
She said: 'Grammar isn't being destroyed; it's being stretched to fit new modes of communication.
For example, using quotation marks for sarcasm and ellipses for uncertainty 'mirrors real speech more closely' and marks an 'intuitive adaptation to digital life'.
Ms Wolf added: 'What might be considered 'wrong' by traditional grammar standards can actually be emotionally precise.'
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