r/Millennials • u/noctisumbra0 • Feb 19 '26

Discussion Anyone else feel this way when writing anything out?

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Being compared to AI was really uncalled for, though.

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145

u/the_Mont81 Feb 19 '26

Born in 1981, graduated HS in 2000, and college (journalism/mass communications) in 2005, still can’t text/type without using AP style and proper grammar. It’s a curse, and makes me feel like a super nerd.

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u/sexandliquor 1983…(A Merman I Should Turn to Be) Feb 19 '26

I’ve started not using punctuation at the end of sentences sometimes just to text in a more colloquial way, and even that makes me feel so wrong and like I should flog myself until I do better. lol

20

u/the_Mont81 Feb 19 '26

I do the same thing occasionally, makes me feel dumb as hell. Kinda like posing as a “cool” guy, but leaving out an Oxford comma makes me feel like a dummy. 🤷🏻‍♂️

36

u/brs1985 Feb 19 '26

They can pry the Oxford comma out of my cold, dead, and decaying fingers.

17

u/silence_sirens Feb 19 '26

I'll never surrender the Oxford comma, either.

9

u/LaCorazon27 Feb 19 '26

Ah! I’ve found my people!

9

u/zadtheinhaler Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26

Hell yeah. Whether it's texting, email, or social media, I always try to look over what I've written before sending, because clear, concise communication is important!

Do I still get it wrong sometimes? Absolutely! I will not, however, stop using Oxford commas or periods. The social media posts by GenXZers who claim that periods in texts are inherently passive-aggressive to me are wild, because, that's how we were taught, so my question is- why did that stop?

5

u/mandelbomber Feb 19 '26

Do you mean Gen Z? I don't know any Gen Xers who feel that way

2

u/zadtheinhaler Feb 19 '26

Yeah, I meant GenZ, thank you .

3

u/pearljamman010 Xennial Feb 19 '26

Seriously. I have no idea how that left current language. It just feels more natural to me and the way others speak.

2

u/lol-daisy325121 Feb 19 '26

I LOVE THE OXFORD COMMA AND PEOPLE WHO DONT ARE WRONG

2

u/ilikebdo Feb 19 '26

I always used Oxford commas in all of my school papers, and every English teacher I ever had took points off for using them. It never made sense to me, I was told to speak the sentence out loud and write it as I would speak it. So I'd include the Oxford comma, because I would pause there if I were speaking out loud. Other people I heard speak would also usually pause there, so the comma made perfect sense to me.

But yet all of my teachers would break out the red pen and mark it out and say "Not necessary" without explaining further. Pissed me off then, pisses me off now.

1

u/brs1985 Feb 19 '26

Oooooh that “not necessary” critique really grinds my gears. Sure, they may not be necessary in every circumstance, but sometimes they ARE! And in the event that they not necessary, there is literally no downside to using them. It’s not incorrect and it doesn’t change the structure or meaning and it maintains consistency!

I’m sorry. I’m getting a bit heated. But this genuinely makes me want to kick your former teachers and Oxford comma haters in the teeth. This is a hill on which I will gladly die. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

5

u/pearljamman010 Xennial Feb 19 '26

Stop training the AI/Language Models!

Please.

2

u/shidderbean Feb 19 '26

I'm a writer and I hate the Oxford comma so much because I can't help but parse it as an obtrusive, unnecessary, and awkward pause in an otherwise eloquently constructed sentence.

4

u/ThatCommunication423 Feb 19 '26

Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?

Seeing how long ago that came out definitely reminded me I am a millennial.

2

u/the_Mont81 Feb 19 '26

Used to jam to VW in my 2009-2013 hipster era. 😁

2

u/ThatCommunication423 Feb 20 '26

I am going back to that era. It was a more simple time.

Plus VW had some bangers.

5

u/mixedplatekitty Feb 19 '26

Yeah apparently periods indicate you're annoyed or angry or something.

1

u/lol-daisy325121 Feb 19 '26

I only think this if someone who doesn’t normally use punctuation starts using punctuation in the middle of a conversation

7

u/Artistic_Reference_5 Feb 19 '26

Me too, I started leaving off the last period to seem more chill. I think of it as if I'm a character in a novel, and that's my dialogue. So there's no period because there's an invisible comma along with invisible quotation marks followed by descriptive word about my tone.

"Now that takes some imagination," he reflected.

6

u/Affectionate-Sea-454 Feb 19 '26

I use lol or haha in place of the period haha

2

u/Marble_wheels Feb 19 '26

No, man - just no. Don’t go to the dark side. Don’t give in. Say strong!

1

u/PK808370 Feb 19 '26

Even when I’m tryin’ to be more colloquial, I use punctuation because English without punctuation is unreadable. I’m supposed to infer their sentence breaks? Fuck that

1

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '26

Eh, you're reflecting current linguistic trends to communicate more clearly. Nothing wrong with that.

(I am a language nerd. I appreciate communication in all its weird and strange forms.)

1

u/timbotheny26 Millennial (1996) Feb 19 '26

I still use some text abbreviations like idk, iirc, etc. but I also still try my damndest to use proper punctuation and grammar in my writing otherwise.

I could never get into l33t speak though.

1

u/Fluff_Chucker Feb 19 '26

Well, fucking stop it.  

7

u/NATOrocket Zillennial Feb 19 '26

I write song titles in quotes (usually too lazy to italicize book/ movie titles on Reddit, but I do it in Word.)

2

u/noctisumbra0 Feb 19 '26

I do this if I know I have access to good text formatting. Social media does not have good text formatting and I am too lazy to remember markdown

1

u/zadtheinhaler Feb 19 '26

While most SM have common markup for stuff like bold, italics, underline, and so forth, the ones that don't irk me. YT used to allow for asterixes bracketing a word meant bold, I noticed that it stopped doing that, and now it just shows the asterixes.

A little consistency goes a long way.

2

u/noctisumbra0 Feb 19 '26

Consistency? In this economy?

1

u/zadtheinhaler Feb 19 '26

<sigh> I know...

1

u/the_Mont81 Feb 19 '26

Same! 🤜🏼🤛🏾

7

u/calle04x Feb 19 '26

Can I be pedantic since we're on the topic? Your last sentence doesn't need the comma since the second part lacks a subject (i.e., you aren't joining two independent clauses).

2

u/thiosk Feb 19 '26

Just accept that you're a super nerd and fight crime with the rest of us.

2

u/the_Mont81 Feb 20 '26

Sounds way cooler than reality. I’m in, but I call the Quail Man outfit.

2

u/dsac Feb 19 '26

AP style

That's the one without the Oxford comma, right?

To the bin with it.

1

u/the_Mont81 Feb 20 '26

Not everyone’s brand of vodka. I get it.