Is Tumblr redefining English?

[Brian G Turner]

An interesting post on Tumblr that was pointed out to me, about how restrictions on comma usage potentially change posts into rhetorical questions:

Riley J. Dennis — obaewankenope: sanerontheinside: ...

Quote:
This is really exciting, linguistically speaking.

Because it’s not true that Tumblr never uses punctuation. But it is true that lack of punctuation has become, itself, a form of punctuation. On Tumblr the lack of punctuation in multisentence-long posts creates the function of rhetorical speech, or speech that is not intended to have an answer, usually in the form of a question. Consider the following two potential posts. Each individual line should be taken as a post:


ugh is there any particular reason people at work have to take these massive handfuls of sauce packets they know they’re not going to use like god put that back we have to pay for that stuff



Ugh. Is there any particular reason people at work have to take these massive handfuls of sauce packets they know they’re not going to use? Like god, put that back. We have to pay for that stuff.


In your head, those two potential posts sound totally different. In the first one I’m ranting about work, and this requires no answer. The second may actually engage you to give an answer about hoarding sauce packets. And if you answer the first post, you will likely do so in the same style.

Here’s what makes this exciting: the English language has no actual punctuation for rhetorical speech–that is, there are no special marks that specifically indicate “this speech is in the abstract, and requires no answer.” Not only that, it never has. The first written record of English (actually proto-English, predating even Old English) dates to the 400s CE, so we’re talking about 1600 years of having absolutely no marker whatsoever for rhetorical speech.

A group of teens and young adults on a blogging website literally reshaped a deficit a millennium and a half old in our language to fit their language needs. More! This group has agreed on a more or less universal standard for these new rules, which fits the definition of “language.” Which is to say Tumblr English is its own actual, real, separate dialect of the English language, and because it is spoken by people worldwide who have introduced concepts from their own languages into it, it may qualify as a written form of pidgin.

Tumblr English should literally be treated as its own language, because it does not follow the rules of any form of formal written English, and yet it does have its own consistent internal rules. If you don’t think that’s cool as f*ck then I don’t even know what to tell you.

 

[HareBrain]

Isn't this just the same as the discussions we've had on here about whether or not to end certain types of rhetorical question with a question-mark? I didn't realise that those of us who leave the question-mark off have been reshaping a deficit a millennium and a half old to fit our language needs. But I guess the thing about being really cool is you never realise how really cool you are.

 

[Ursa major]

While both examples look like rhetorical questions to me -- both the

"like god put that back we have to pay for that stuff"
​

and the

"Like god, put that back. We have to pay for that stuff."
​

strongly imply this (and would do in spoken English, which isn't ever punctuated, and I strongly suggest that they would be spoken as questions) -- this does not mean that someone won't give an answer (to either of them).

the English language has no actual punctuation for rhetorical speech–that is, there are no special marks that specifically indicate “this speech is in the abstract, and requires no answer.” Not only that, it never has. The first written record of English (actually proto-English, predating even Old English) dates to the 400s CE, so we’re talking about 1600 years of having absolutely no marker whatsoever for rhetorical speech.

I'm going to make a stab in the dark and suggest that rhetorical questions used to be asked mainly, if not solely, by people using their voices. And that, before chat rooms, people did not have live conversations using written text. The deficit -- if it exists -- is therefore not more than a thousand years old, but far more recently created.

Now it might be nice, as I've seen expressed here on the Chrons, if a recognised way of differentiating rhetorical questions from normal questions was created and agreed, but it's hardly required... otherwise one (or more than one) way would have already been created. Given that modern fiction is often written in 1st person or very close 3rd person, where we have access to -- are sometimes regaled with -- the thoughts of one of the characters in a scene, it's easy to indicate what that character meant (if they asked the question in dialogue**) or how they understood it (if they heard it in dialogue).


** - Is there any point in differentiating between different types of question in the narrative? It isn't as if the PoV character (or narrator, in an omniscient narrative) is waiting for the reader's answer, is it?***

*** This is a rhetorical question, but feel free to respond....

 

[The Judge]

Lawyers have been producing legal documents without punctuation within paragraphs for centuries, so does that makes us cooler than the rest of you/

And are these tumblr-teens really shaping language to fit their needs, or are they simply illiterate and/or bone idle and/or unable to comprehend what punctuation is and how to use it/


I've decided that rhetorical questions should now have a forward slash after them, so having invented my own punctuation here, I'm way cooler than all the rest of you put together.

 

[Ursa major]

I'll be worried when computer code has rhetorical IF statements that look just like ordinary ones....

 

[prizzley]

...both examples look like rhetorical questions to me -- both the

"like god put that back we have to pay for that stuff"
​

and the

"Like god, put that back. We have to pay for that stuff."​

I don't see this as a rhetorical question (with or without punctuation). A rhetorical question would be:

" Like god, put that back. Why do you grab stuff we can't pay for?"

The speaker doesn't expect an answer. If one is made, they would probably ignore it.​

 

[Ursa major]

The rhetorical question is the text before the text I quoted.

I was merely pointing out that, to me, the text that I quoted strongly implied that the preceding text was a rhetorical question (i.e. not one expecting an answer).

 

[Wiglaf]

I'll be worried when computer code has rhetorical IF statements that look just like ordinary ones....

100 ! WIGLAF'S EXTENDED BASIC PROGRAM
11O ! IF YOU DON'T LIKE THIS PROGRAM THEN GOTO HELL ELSE GOTO 200

rhetorical IF statement from the 80s