Why are we still so afraid of using the grumpy old period?

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/magazine/ending-sentences-period.html

16•samclemens•2w ago

Comments

Hasz•1w ago

bah humbug. In the age of LLM edited text, having a distinct style (be it written or spoken) is a breath of fresh air. AI has already ruined the em dash, no need to let it ruin your unique voice, style and cadence.

aquariusDue•1w ago

Hear, hear. I used to dislike low effort replies and comments that were written hastily and contained spelling/grammar mistakes, weird turns of phrase or even feeling incomplete like two different thoughts mashed together and presented as they happened to be. Now I just enjoy them, flawed as they are someone bothered to "hand-craft" them.

rdtsc•1w ago

> people appeal to the internet, terrified they’re hindering their careers by striking the wrong balance; they seek advice from job coaches ...

They do? It seems strange to me people are terrified about this and they need coaching about how many periods or commas to put around their "lol"s and "heh"s. If this is what terrifies and scares us, we are paradoxically both doomed, and at the same time doing pretty well, given what the top item on the agenda look like.

bigstrat2003•1w ago

What is this article talking about? Nobody is afraid of using periods.

satisfice•1w ago

Use exclamation marks sparingly. Use hyperbole sparingly. Use cussing rarely. Use emoji rarely. Use parallelism sparingly. Use antibiotics rarely. All for the same reason.

thrill•1w ago

Use any and all the rules of grammar and punctuation as needed for clarity, structure, (and the Oxford comma) and tone — but no more.

Hizonner•1w ago

> Use emoji rarely.

You misspelled "never".

satisfice•1w ago

The only time I do it is in replies to my wife, who thinks emoji are the funniest things she has ever encountered in her life.

Hizonner•1w ago

I'm not.

Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

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