Yesterday I found someone who says “question mark” after every question and has apparently forgotten how to inflect their voice to express tone. It was horrifying, but I realized I’m not that different. I immediately think “cringe” or “based” at many things. Even when I’m not terminally online everything I hear gets put on a meme template by my brain. I’m having trouble expressing tone/emotion in writing without visual indicators like emojis or “/s.” I know I’m not alone, what do we do?
Step 1: Get off the internet
Read a book. Talk to people about the books you’re reading, and ask them about the books they’re reading.
I genuinely believe that people don’t read cuz they don’t know people who read. Tell people you read, how you read, what you read and why that is awesome.
I thought that Capital was impossible until I met a guy who had read all 3 volumes multiple times, and capital like 6 times. He was younger than me and also hadnt gone to college.
I’m having trouble expressing tone/emotion in writing without visual indicators like emojis or “/s.”
Neurotypical people problems \s
Do you watch movies or stuff like that frequently? It sounds like you’re engaging way more with text or images than audio input from other people.
I just mean it sounds stupid in legit writing beyond online discussion. I don’t like TV and avoid it most of the time. I do listen to a lot of podcasts and music though, in addition to talking along with text based stuff.
Not sure about essays and other non-narrarive writings, but lots of fiction books have an equivalent for sarcasm markers.
They’ll write something like this, since lots of sarcasm is based on tone and hard-to-tell context.
“This is a very nice meal”, Harry Jackson sneered.
If they’re feeling very charitable, or if it’s really not clear, they’ll even make it even more obvious.
“Do you fancy me, Potter?”, asked Malfoy sarcastically.
In Portuguese some folks even say something like “aqueles caras” (“[said] those guys”) after a sarcastic sentence to make it clear they’re being sarcastic.
Sarcasm markers are way more ubiquitous than they seem. I don’t think you should worry too much about adopting some internet lingo like saying “cringe”, because language evolved.
But Sarcasm is weird. Maybe you could try to consciously pick up on how writers, actors and even family and acquaintances you like express it outside of forums in various ways.
Saying “question mark” out loud is actually a really good habit if you’re trying to get into Mandarin
Is it, ma
It’s more like ending a sentence with “Yeah?” or “Right?”, Yeah?
Ah, so quite a punchy way of asking a question? I never got too far with my Mandarin, so didn’t learn many subtlties.
No, as in it doesn’t require you to rearrange the structure of the sentence you’re turning into a question. “Is it ma” vs “It is ma”
Most direct translations do come off as punchy though, like instead of “What do you do for work?” you’d use “You do what for work?”
Oh, I see. Thanks for explaining this.
If you’re a native English speaker, odds are that you didn’t forget how to express subtleties like sarcarsm in writing, it’s just that a lot of people on the internet are non-native English and a huge proportion of native speakers with internet access are only functionally literate (obv. in most cases not by choice). /s doesn’t exist because you can’t write sarcasm, it exists as a courtesy to people who can’t read it.
As for the rest of it, I don’t know. It’s wierd that someone could forget how to inflect their voice when people learn to do it by watching TV. There’s a whole swathe of English learners who learned from Peppa Pig that’s triggered a surge in people speaking with a Received Pronunciation accent, along with the intonation style along with the show’s child-like over-emphasized intonation. Brains are weird, but plastic enough that you can relearn stuff with persistence.
Read paper books, with all electronics off, the best place to start is Marks, Engels and Lenin. Personally, Engels and Lenin are most fun to read for me – Marks is difficult. Talk a lot with people in real life – may be tricky, so one need to find some club or organization.
Yesterday I found someone who says “question mark” after every question and has apparently forgotten how to inflect their voice to express tone.
Please tell me this isn’t real. There is no way someone can suffer from so much internet brainrot.
It’s one thing to think online stuff, but verbally speaking the word “question mark”, with no tone or inflection, is a whole different level
Of course all of us have at least once said something like “lol” or “lmao” out loud but this is far beyond what it takes for one to be told to touch grass.
I say “shrug” sometimes IRL, but that’s about it
That’s silly, personally I go “smh my head” sometimes.
Engage in some low-brow, offline activies like going to a trivia night
Take 3 days 100% no phone, no exceptions except emergencies keep it off. If it’s no big deal, it’s no big deal. If it feels like withdrawing from opiates and is hideously uncomfortable, you have a problem.
Personally the words and tone etc aren’t inherently, to me, the worst thing, emojis are a lot of fun, pictograms even, we’re connecting to our ancestors 😔🙏
I actually took a month mostly off of my phone and it was great. I should get back off but I have FOMO for Lemmygrad. I’m also clearly addicted once I allow myself to use the internet at all.
i am the person who says question mark out loud
Honestly I don’t see the problem with talking like this.
I’m not going to sit here and pretend that not being able to inflect their voice to express tone isn’t a bad thing but tbh I can’t imagine that is/was caused by internet usage. If I’m wrong, then that’s fucked and it must be a severe, severe case.
But regarding the based and cringe thing, there’s nothing wrong with using that terminology, especially if it’s around people similar to you. Those words were a pretty common thing to hear among my friend group for a while and I still drop them every once in a while regardless of where I am.
Expressing tone through text is notoriously difficult, that’s literally why those indicators were developed. Nothing wrong with using them.
Language, just like society and the economy and everything else, develops and changes with the times and conditions. I won’t say there aren’t serious risks and problems with skibidi toilet for 7 hours a day brainrot or constant stimulation from the moment you pop out of the womb, but dumbass lingo has always been around, specifically among youth. So pretending that it’s a crisis to be using it is just a little silly to me. Not to shit on your post or anything I just mean like, I don’t think you need to worry about this as much as it seems you are. The person you’re talking about might though.
It’s also not like you’ll be stuck in one form of communication; at least I’m not. I often switch from brainrot, to how I’m typing normally now, to speaking with serious intellectual effort.
TLDR; don’t be afraid of language and it’s development, it’s always going to seem stupid or unserious at first but it’s literally just a more complex form of communication being made as time passes.
