toot like an old 

The anxiety demon that lives inside my head keeps trying to tell me that I... "toot like an old". Something about how I use capital letters, punctuation, rare emoticons, and basically no emoji.

I don't put any stock in what my anxiety demon says – that asshole is a liar and a fraud – but it does make me think....

What all do you folks think is off or strange or dated in how you type when you toot?

· · SubwayTooter · 0 · 0 · 2

toot like an old 

@ElectricKeet My language use is horribly inconsistent between posts. Sure, expressiveness is a thing, but sometimes I wonder how that all comes across.

toot like an old 

@ElectricKeet i still use weird inflections
like this~ and -this- and such, which are typing quirks i picked up from an old old friend from a pokemon forum

toot like an old 

@Oneironott As a result of many years of text-based conversation via BBS, MUCK, IRC, Slack, and a zillion others, any attempt to emote or emphasize runs about a one-in-three chance of being in the wrong idiom, leaving me with too many asterisks, not enough asterisks, unsightly underscores, or other such typographical abominations.

Relatedly, have I mentioned how much I despise systems that automatically convert otherwise legitimate Unicode like ™ into emoji? Same thing at work.

toot like an old 

@ElectricKeet Hmm.. dropping capitals I'm okay with (but don't do myself =:), but generally, I've found everyone on my timeline does put sufficient thought into their writings to convey the point, without inducing, say, the winceworthy l33tspeak of the 90s, or the texting contractions of the 00s.

Myself, I admit to using florid vocabulary on occasion - it's fun. Why not enjoy the odd flourish in life, whether written, or indeed, culinary (as means permit)? ^_^

toot like an old 

@ElectricKeet 💦 Tootin' to the Oldies!💦

toot like an old 

@ElectricKeet In all seriousness, my linguistic styling is all over the map. In my search for precision and rhythm in how I talk, I end up with some pretty amazing run-on sentences that look like they ought to have been written in one of some kind of fourteenth-century textbooks before anyone had invented grammar.

toot like an old 

@ElectricKeet I think the most recent time I was told that the way I write is strange happened in an IRC chatroom - I was told I'd set off someone's "Turing Test senses". My best guess about that is probably my best guess about this: the terms I find easiest to express myself in are skewed toward precise phrasings and uncommon words.

(I mostly don't feel uncomfortable with how I communicate - my discomfort with that interaction, for example, lay in the feeling that I'd just been othered.)

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Awoo Space

Awoo.space is a Mastodon instance where members can rely on a team of moderators to help resolve conflict, and limits federation with other instances using a specific access list to minimize abuse.

While mature content is allowed here, we strongly believe in being able to choose to engage with content on your own terms, so please make sure to put mature and potentially sensitive content behind the CW feature with enough description that people know what it's about.

Before signing up, please read our community guidelines. While it's a very broad swath of topics it covers, please do your best! We believe that as long as you're putting forth genuine effort to limit harm you might cause – even if you haven't read the document – you'll be okay!