Bah, humbug

[bladespark]

Argh.

Gone beyond grouchy into "hiss, kill" just now. When I am annoyed and upset, but am TRYING MY DAMNEDEST to keep from saying anything rude, and I am doing the best I can to be deliberately silly and light hearted, and I get taken seriously and treated like I'm making a personal attack for something I thought was patently ridiculous and couldn't possibly be taken seriously, this doesn't make me happy.

Comments

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

You know I have NEVER seen this flipping tilde = I don't mean it thing before?

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I use a tilde as punctuation indication that a remark is accompanied by mild emphasis, usually light sarcasm or smartassery - that's how it's generally used around me, anyway. It's not a universal marker.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

My problem with this usage is that it is VERY difficult to figure out from context when given only a single instance of it. Witness the above.

When seeing things like "j/k" or even "lol" the letters have a meaning which can be parsed by somebody who's not familiar with those usages, if given a little thought. And mid-text insertions like !thing or =/= can be readily assumed to mean something significant, and figured from there.

But a tilde slapped at the very end of a line gives no inherent clue that it's not a typo. The line makes sense without it. There is no way for somebody who does not already know to realize the meaning. And since the line does make sense without it, the line is thus interpreted without it. And given that the difference between saying something seriously and saying it as a joke CAN be a very vital difference, I really just don't like using something that ambiguous to signal that difference.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

True. I'm not arguing that you should have recognized it, just giving an instance of its usage in my experience.