Sending a text which ends with a full stop, as the rules of English grammar dictate, could be giving out the wrong message, A Binghamton University research team has discovered.
Texts such as “lol” or “love you” which end with a full stop are perceived as less sincere than if you’d left the punctuation out altogether.
If you want your messages to be greeted more positively, you need to end your expertly crafted “wats 4 dinner” with an exclamation mark, says the research.
Research leader, Celia Klin explains what’s going on: “Texting is lacking many of the social cues used in actual face-to-face conversations. When speaking, people easily convey social and emotional information with eye gaze, facial expressions, tone of voice, pauses and so on. People obviously can’t use these mechanisms when they are texting. Thus, it makes sense that texters rely on what they have available to them – emoticons, deliberate misspellings that mimic speech sounds and, according to our data, punctuation.”
So remember this when sending the hundreds of “Happy New Year” texts in a few weeks – an exclamation mark makes you a hero, whilst sticking a full stop is likely to ruin everyone’s year.
Source: The Guardian
