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why typing like this is sometimes okay.

Tom Scott | November 18, 2025



Language changes over time, and that’s fine. Time for a dose of descriptivism, as the Language Files return. Pull down the description for the references! MORE LANGUAGE FILES: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL96C35uN7xGLDEnHuhD7CTZES3KXFnwm0

Written with Gretchen McCulloch and Molly Ruhl. Gretchen’s new book, BECAUSE INTERNET, is available soon:
🇺🇸 US: https://amzn.to/30tLpjT
🇨🇦 CA: https://amzn.to/2JsTYWH
🇬🇧 UK: https://amzn.to/31K8eRD
(Those are affiliate links that give a commission to me or Gretchen, depending on country!)

Gretchen can be found at http://lingthusiasm.com/

REFERENCES:

Labov, W. (1972) Some principles of linguistics methodology. Language and Society 1(1): 97–120.
Bucholtz, M. & Hall, K. (2005) Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies. vol. 7 (4-2): 585-614.

Biber, D. & Finegan, E. (1994). Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register. New York ; Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Soffer, O. (2012). Liquid language? on the personalization of discourse in the digital era. New Media & Society, 14(7), 1092-1110.

Bourlai, E., & Herring, S. C. (2014). Multimodal communication on tumblr: I have so many feels! Proceedings of the 2014 ACM Conference on Web Science – WebSci ’14. doi:10.1145/2615569.2615697

Lawson, A., Ferrer, L., Wang, W., & Murray, J. (2015). Detection of demographics and identity in spontaneous speech and writing. In

A. K. Baughman, J. Gao, J. Pan, & V. A. Petrushin (Eds.), Multimedia Data Mining and Analytics (Vol. 3, pp. 205-225). Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-14998-1_9

Mckee, H. (2002). “YOUR VIEWS SHOWED TRUE IGNORANCE!!!”: (Mis)Communication in an online interracial discussion forum. Computers and Composition, 19(4), 411-434.

Danet, B. (2013). Flaming and linguistic impoliteness on a listserv. In S. C. Herring, D. Stein, & T. Virtanen (Eds.), Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication (Vol. 9, Handbook of Pragmatics, pp. 639-664). Walter de Gruyter

McCulloch, G. (2019). Because internet. New York: Riverhead Books.

Milne, A. A. & Shepard, E. (1926). Winnie-the-Pooh. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.

Urabnik, C. L. (2013). Adjacent character repetition: Orthographic Pragmatics in Computer-Mediated Discourse. (Master’s Thesis) San Francisco State University.

Gunrajm D.N., Drumm-Hewitt, A.M., Dashow, E.M., Upadhyay, S.S.N., Klin, C.M. (2015). Texting insincerely: The role of the period in text messaging. Computers in Human Behavior 55(B). (pp 1067-1075). doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.11.003

Gonzalez-Lloret, M. (2011). Conversation analysis of computer-mediated communication. CALICO Journal, 28(2), 308-325.

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Written by Tom Scott

Comments

This post currently has 47 comments.

  1. @TomScottGo

    November 18, 2025 at 6:27 am

    It has been four years since I made a language video. (And more years than that since I graduated from my linguistics degree.) Well: they're back! Three videos spread over the next few weeks, written with a great team. If you haven't seen the earlier ones, have a look at the full playlist!

  6. @quad7685

    November 18, 2025 at 6:27 am

    Most notable example of Capitalizing ordinary words and nouns came from poetry, meant to affect our interpretations and not blatant pronunciation or intonation

  9. @WandaBread

    November 18, 2025 at 6:27 am

    I try to type with somewhat normal words,

    i cn 't understand peeple who tipe like this ,it meses me up so mchh 🤩😝

    I think people should have some level of standard for themselves. That being said, not using a period every time is still fine. You can be casual. But man, some people don't look like they know how to talk at all.

  14. @virkgale

    November 18, 2025 at 6:27 am

    I'm too use to typing like this now to change. Plus I like using punctuation and s**t like that! Wonder if it'll become "Retro" and cool in the future?

  16. @BrodiesharkII

    November 18, 2025 at 6:27 am

    Well, I don't normally use grammar in text. For example, joan i, but if auto correct adds full stops (periods) or commas, then I'm still going to use them, so this comment will probably be grammatically correct

  19. @Hellion_Dragons

    November 18, 2025 at 6:27 am

    Here is an example:

    Note before: I am not English, this isn’t very accurate but I tried

    Writing to my teacher: Good morning! I’ve added the project bellow, I am *insert name* from class **insert class name**. Thank you very much!

    Talking to my best friend:

    “bich wher the fuk are you”

    “Sowy :<“

    “je hav fosh brein and u know it”

    (Yes, we distorted grammar so much is technically a new language)

  27. @Scar32

    November 18, 2025 at 6:27 am

    3:47 i hate that keypad 1337 speak is used in those educational internet safety booklets or whatnot you get at school, like all the characters seem to speak in this overextended "OMG la57 ni6ht was fun, c u l8r!" or whatever, it just seems like whoever was writing this never gone on online forms or chatrooms and are just think that old ways of texting was for style and not convenience or keeping character count low.

  29. @Icosa_sin

    November 18, 2025 at 6:27 am

    i kinda noticed this a while ago but i didnt think about it that much. i usually just saw myself as someone who generally follows grammatical rules aside from capitalization and apostrophes. this video made me realize that i usually type in different ways super frequently.
    -I only use proper capitalization, grammar, and punctuation when I’m being super formal. It might be that I just don’t want to come off as lazy to specific people, like teachers, though.
    -i use correct grammar aside from capitalizations and apostrophes when im talking in comment sections.
    -sometimes i leave out periods (and even sometimes commas) in social media if i have a single sentence in a message. i used to not type periods, and to distinguish sentences i would just start a new line of text haha
    -i sometimes use a slightly more “””formal””” version of crytext with a small portion of my friends, which has a small amoun,t of typos (intentional or not). i also sometimes use double commas in place of periods, or even a combination of periods and commas,, i also just do it when i feel silly

    also i generally dont use emojis, bbut theres specific emojis that i use somewhat frequently as opposed to others with my friends like 😭 and ☠️

    idk why i did this ,, no ones gonna read it anyway

  38. @egz3637

    November 18, 2025 at 6:27 am

    i find the weirdest thing is ppl have perfect grammar otherwise great punctuation whatever etc but then dont capitalize i n keep everything lowcap. like brah u r typing good already it irks me when i see that sometimes. just go full runon improper punctuation no cap like me but nah. specifically they just dont like I.

  43. @ClassicalPan

    November 18, 2025 at 6:27 am

    I respectfully disagree that there is no correct way to type/write. It's just become widely acceptable to type incorrectly. The problem is that it's so common to type in a lazy way that many people don't even know how to form a sentence or use correct punctuation. People feel self-conscious about using punctuation. Many of us who do want to type correctly often don't because we don't want to appear too serious. We put pressure on ourselves to break our sentences and insert emojis in order to appear more personable. It's a bad thing, IMO.

Comments are closed.

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