I wanted to write this little document explaining how "the English I use on the Internet" differs from the English you might read in a newspaper.
I should note: these rules apply in a "direct messaging" or "chatroom" kind of scenario, and also on Twitter. Elsewhere, especially in long-form forum-style environments where I have paragraphs and Markdown, I tend to tone it down. I'll still use emoticons and abbreviations, but try to capitalize and punctuate in a standard way. (This seems kind of common when I compare, say, StackExchange posts versus chatrooms: plenty of members capitalize in the former but not the latter.)
- Sentences don't start with a capital letter.
- I almost always capitalize the word
I, because I think it looks weird otherwise. I sometimes lowercase it for effect, as sort of a "hushed voice" thing. - I may or may not capitalize proper nouns — it carries no between-the-lines info whether I do or not.
- In message-final position, a period (
.) indicates sort of a downward intonation: it indicates things like anger, gravity, irony, passive-aggressiveness, or any of these as a joke. Otherwise, I don't end messages in periods.- In the middle of a message, it gets tricky. I've recognized that I am way more liberal with
!or...there, because I know the weight that.carries online. But I'll use a standard.now and then.
- In the middle of a message, it gets tricky. I've recognized that I am way more liberal with