People write text messages in different ways just like people speak in different ways. While all these different communication styles tend to work equally well, they function differently and the way any given person does something has a purpose. There are of course patterns and even “text dialects” because everyone learns how to communicate from other people.

I’m interested in a feature of my own texting style, one certainly not unique to me, which I noticed myself doing some time ago. Namely, this is ending a message without punctuation. Now, I’m aware that virtually everyone omits periods in text messages all the time for the sake of efficiency, and that’s not exactly what I’m talking about. What I noticed myself doing was avoiding using punctuation when I otherwise would have.

For example, in a message consisting of multiple sentences, I always separate sentences with periods as usual. I would naturally also end the final sentence in a period too, but I usually don’t. Sometimes this looks (to me) a bit awkward, and it agitates the prescriptivist devil sitting on my shoulder.

I do this in any textual communication whatsoever, but only in specific situations.

The purpose of the stopless sentence

What I realized is that the final period is, for me, a marker of tone and register. Because omitting punctuation is so common and so casual, using a period indicates a level of seriousness or formality. I actually think of it in terms of the tone of voice I would read each sentence in. Without punctuation, the intonation is neutral, and with punctuation, the intonation is falling.

As I said, it sometimes seems grammatically awkward. However, I can’t bring myself to use a final period when I feel it would irreparably change the meaning of my message. This is true even though I don’t know exactly how other people interpret the final period. I think that, within my textual speech community, it’s generally understood as having the kind of vibe I described.

Is this part of your textual idiolect as well? Do “ok” and “ok.” mean different things to you?