What are your writing quirks?

I capslock a LOT
uh, pretty obviously.
I say uh/.../um a lot
???
!!!
draw out words for a long time?
idk, anyone who looks at my writing a lot wanna add?

 

MORE

• like 50% of my long posts end with the word 'anyway'
• i say 'like' A LOT!!
• many 'hmm's and similar noises!! not very much keysmashing. i am not good at keysmashing; it never looks Right
• a lot of swearing unfortunately.........
• i tend to type like i talk!! which means swearing, filler words, mid-sentence subject changes, describing actions that are taking place concurrently, slipping into the role of someone else
• (that last one is a terrible habit that gets me into awkward situations at times...... like i'll briefly 'be' someone else for the sake of a joke, and someone might not Get It, and be like 'why would you say that?' or 'no you didn't' or whatever and i have to be like 'no i was.... i was being [x person]........ ' and it just ruins everything)
• judicious use of linebreaks and formatting and italics and bold and font size and basically everything the medium has to offer!!! plain text is STIFLING because like. okay so all-caps and italics are both good for emphasis but they're very different types of emphasis and they are not interchangeable and i need them both
• ANYWAY!!!

 

I tend to type with perfect punctuation and grammar (at least, as far as I know, anyway XD). I use the XD smiley a lot. I also like parentheses. Plus, I like commas and sentences that go on for a while a lot.

 

Since people are including dialect stuff, I had someone on Tumblr decide I had to be from Pittsburgh a bit ago because I used the phrase "it needs cleaned." Apparently omitting infinitives in phrases like "it needs to be cleaned" -> "it needs cleaned" and "the dog wants to go out" -> "the dog wants out" is regional, and accepted in a lot of the northern Midwest but especially common in Pittsburgh.

 

omg i've heard "the dog wants out" and variations thereof but never anything like "it needs cleaned". regional grammar things are so interesting!!

 

i don't hear it around here but i say it cause i picked it up from @Morven

 

Yeah, it's a feature of some British accents as well (including mine).

 

thats how i always interpreted 'out' as well!! what the dog desires is the state of being Out

it's also similar to how people will say they want in or out of something!! like an opportunity or a plan. "I want in [on this marvelous opportunity/bank heist]" or "I want out [of this trainwreck of a bank heist plan, Jared you're going to get arrested]"

 

• Weirdest thing: Tendency to drop the first part of a contraction when the second part is "is"
  • "That's okay" = 's okay.
  • "It's fucking hot" = 's fuckin hot

• Actually, tendency to drop beginning words entirely.
  • "Eh, it happens." = "Happens."
• Also I blame the Dave Strider for my overuse of "sup" as a greeting.
• Deliberate misspellings to indicate emotion, emotion
  • wat
  • y u do dis
• Also, if I'm on a keyboard I tend to be heavy-handed on the shift key
  • SO sentences look a little weird. KInda like this. DUnno why.

 

I do 's okay/'sokay sometimes too, though I usually have "it's okay" in mind. And the deliberate mispelling with "wat"/"wut" (which are not interchangeable, as they indicate slightly different levels of baffled disbelief :::PPP ).

 

Um. Inconsistent capitalization and punctuation, using "pffffft" instead of "lol" or similar indications of laughing, use of emoticons including :3 >.> -_- and variations, typically correct spelling regardless of capitalization issues, using "alrighty" instead of "alright." (and that pause at the beginning in case you couldn't tell)

 

I tend to type like I talk, with lots of unnecessary words and weird pauses, also too many commas.

I'm an old timer who still sometimes uses lol literally instead of as a tone modifier.

- uses astericks for actions - which is probably a sin in these modern times

- difficult words often mispelled (because lazy)

I tend to copy the speaking style of other people in the conversation.

 

@blue has, without fail, identified every single one of my alt accts on here due to my writing style, even when i purposefully try to obscure it, so she's probably more qualified to talk about my typing style than i am :PPPP

 

Belated but I feel this!

For example, my friend Hiatt nearly always greets me with "Hi, Anna!", with an exclamation point...and when he uses a period instead, that means something is up. (He used a period when greeting me the day his father died, and again when his best friend died, and both times I could just TELL that something was Not Right because of that simple punctuation difference.)

 

Let's see...
I use ellipses a lot.
I'll put a comma in a place where it probably doesn't go, like, to show that there's a pause there.
I also put a question mark to indicate uptalk? (what you call it when you make a statement raise like a question when it's not a question, yay linguistics)
I also use a lot of emotes, but my favorites are the ones with eyes like these ^.^ >.>;
And I tend to write things properly, but if it's something common that's easy to understand then I'm gonna write it the way I say it.
If I can't use italics on a certain thing, I'll either write the word that should be italicized IN CAPITALS or more likely /like this/.
Will use nonwords to approximate the sounds I make sometimes. Myurr.
Also I *hug people* and things like that. But that's pretty standard I think? But when I'm on roll20 RPing with my friends, I write out my actions and dialogue like you'd write it in a short story most of the time. Or if I'm just contributing one line, sometimes I'll *takes a drink* or something.

 

-I put in a bunch of commas where I would pause in speaking, and also where I think there is a phrase break, and also in places where I think I vaguely remember my mom telling me to put commas in. This sometimes results in a lot of commas.
-My sentences tend to be really long when I'm trying to explain something, full of caveats and asides and qualifiers and run-ons. I often will have paragraphs that are only a few sentences long, but each sentence takes up several lines. I've been trying to get out of this habit, but as you can see I am not all that good at curbing myself.
-I also like parentheticals and footnotes, but only use them when I want to sound really pedantic and academic. Or Pratchettian. I tend to use [ ] to indicate either phrases that have been replaced or phrases that can be removed, but I don't usually distinguish between the two usages.
-Also I start a lot of sentences with "Also". I've been trying to mitigate it with "Furthermore"s and "In addition"s, but I naturally go to "Also". Again, a habit that I am trying to break without much success.
-That. Relative clauses almost always get a "that", even when the word after it is also a relative pronoun "that", which means that I end up with a lot of "that that" in my writing. And even though that looks weird, I still have to put it in. I want to say that I distinguish between "that" and "which" but I don't think I actually do so.
-I use "whom" for relative clauses where the antecedent is being used as the object of the clause. I don't care how stuffy I sound, I like declension.
-I flop between British and American spellings for things where the differences are small; for instance, half the time I'll write "theater" and the other half I'll write "theatre". When the American and English words are straight-up different words, I'll go with American, but you'll occasionally see me write "colour". I'll almost always write "math", though, as leftover trolling of a person whom I never talk to anymore. If you see me write "maths", I'm probably being sarcastic or condescending.
-I'm trying to figure out what motivates my contraction usage; why are some cases definitely "I'm" but others are absolutely "I am"? Even without @seebs' grouping theory coming into play, there are definitely rules that I follow but don't consciously know.
-I don't put apostrophes for pluralization ever. Multiple copies of the letter t is "t"s. Multiple copies of the number 5 is either "5"s or 5s.
-I try to maintain a use-mention distinction via double-quotation marks. I'm not always successful, but I try.
-Other than that, I guess standard American spelling and grammar, for whatever that may mean.

 

if you ever see an action tag in [brackets] that [isn't finished

that's probably me

(also, abuse of the words just and basically)

 

One for me is I don't use higher-register profanity that much. Plenty of PG-13 swearing ("asshole," "douche," and "goddamn" are all used liberally, for example), but F-bombs etc. are a relative rarity because I prefer to save them for when I feel I really need them.

 

On the other hand, I will use all the profanity I fucking like if I can, because I have to censor myself in my day-to-day a lot and it really motherfucking wears on a shitstain like myself :P (Sorry if that makes you wince ^^;;; @LadyNighteyes )

Other quirks that I've noticed:
- I rarely drop punctuation and if I do it's because I'm really excited or upset and i can't
- I end a lot of sentences with an emoticon to indicate tone or expression :3
- I actually use more profanity when I'm feeling belligerent or self-deprecating (or both)
- I use paragraph breaks instead of "." especially when I'm rambling about something or in a hurry.
- I also use ???question marks at the start and end of questions that I'm seriously questioning???

If there are any others you've seen could someone tell me? That would be really cool XDD