Tone indicator

Last updated

A tone indicator or tone tag is a symbol attached to a sentence or message sent in a textual form, such as over the internet, to explicitly state the intonation or intent of the message, especially when it may be otherwise ambiguous. Tone indicators start with a forward slash (/), followed by a short series of letters, usually a shortening of another word. Examples include /j, meaning "joking"; /srs, meaning "serious"; or /s, meaning "sarcastic".

Contents

History

Early attempts to create tone indicators stemmed from the difficulty of denoting irony in print media, and so several irony punctuation marks were proposed. The percontation point (; a reversed question mark) was proposed by Henry Denham in the 1580s to denote a rhetorical question, but usage died out by the 1700s. [1] In 1668, John Wilkins proposed the irony mark , using an inverted exclamation mark (¡) to denote an ironic statement. Various other punctuation marks were proposed over the following centuries to denote irony, but none gained popular usage. [2] In 1982, the emoticon was created to be used to denote jokes (with :-)) or things that are not jokes (with :-(). [3]

The syntax of modern tone indicators stems from /s , which has long been used on the internet to denote sarcasm. [4] This symbol is an abbreviated version of the earlier /sarcasm, itself a simplification of </sarcasm>, the form of a humorous XML closing tag marking the end of a "sarcasm" block, and therefore placed at the end of a sarcastic passage. [5]

Internet usage

On the internet, one or more tone indicators may be placed at the end of a message. A tone indicator on the internet often takes the form of a forward slash (/) followed by an abbreviation of a relevant adjective; alternatively, a more detailed textual description (e.g., / friendly, caring about your well-being) may be used. For example, /srs may be attached to the end of a message to indicate that the message is meant to be interpreted in a serious manner, as opposed to, for example, being a joke (which is commonly represented as /j). Tone indicators are used to explicitly state the author's intent, instead of leaving the message up to interpretation. [6] [4]

List of common tone indicators on the internet [7] [6] [8]
AbbreviationMeaning
/jjoking
/hjhalf joking
/bjbad joke
/jsjust saying
/s or /sarcsarcastic / sarcasm
/srsserious
/nsrsnot serious
/lhlight hearted
/hlhhalf light hearted
/g or /gengenuine
/iironic
/uiunironic
/vuvery upset
/ijinside joke
/refreference
/tteasing
/nmnot mad
/lua little upset
/nfnot forced
/nbhnobody here; nobody in this conversation
/nsbnot subtweeting; not referring to anybody
/naynot at you
/ayat you
/nbrnot being rude
/nv or /navnot venting/not a vent
/otoff topic
/ththreat
/cb clickbait
/ffake
/qquote
/l or /ly or /lyrlyrics
/c copypasta
/mmetaphor / metaphorically
/liliteral / literally
/rt or /rhrhetorical question
/hyp hyperbole
/eexcited
/exexaggeration
/p or /pl platonic
/rromantic
/aalterous / affectionately
/sx or /xsexual intent
/nsxnon-sexual intent
/nsnon-sexual intent or not sure
/pc or /pospositive connotation
/nc or /negnegative connotation
/neuneutral / neutral connotation
/nhnot hostile
/npanot passive aggressive
/ststill thinking
/mjmainly/mostly joking
/mamessing around
/hsrshalf serious
/hshalf sarcastic
/drdon't reply
/dkmdon't kill me
/cwhcoping with humor
/crcringey
/curcurious
/mhlymisheard lyrics
/msrsmostly serious
/msmostly sarcastic
/nonnonsense
/genq or /gqgenuine question
/jbtjoking but true

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emoticon</span> Pictorial representation of a facial expression using punctuation marks, numbers and letters

An emoticon, short for emotion icon, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers and letters—to express a person's feelings, mood or reaction, without needing to describe it in detail.

Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of written text should be read and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, consisting of points between the words and horizontal strokes between sections. The alphabet-based writing began with no spaces, no capitalization, no vowels, and with only a few punctuation marks, as it was mostly aimed at recording business transactions. Only with the Greek playwrights did the ends of sentences begin to be marked to help actors know when to make a pause during performances. Punctuation includes space between words and both obsolete and modern signs.

The symbol # is known variously in English-speaking regions as the number sign, hash, or pound sign. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes including the designation of an ordinal number and as a ligatured abbreviation for pounds avoirdupois – having been derived from the now-rare .

The asterisk, from Late Latin asteriscus, from Ancient Greek ἀστερίσκος, asteriskos, "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.

A dagger, obelisk, or obelus is a typographical mark that usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used. The symbol is also used to indicate death or extinction. It is one of the modern descendants of the obelus, a mark used historically by scholars as a critical or highlighting indicator in manuscripts. In older texts, it is called an obelisk.

A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their names, that vary between British and American English. "Brackets", without further qualification, are in British English the (...) marks and in American English the [...] marks.

The question mark? is a punctuation mark that phoneindicates a question or interrogative clause or phrase in many languages.

The slash is a slanting line punctuation mark /. It is also known as a stroke, a solidus, a forward slash and several other historical or technical names. Once used to mark periods and commas, the slash is now used to represent division and fractions, exclusive 'or' and inclusive 'or', and as a date separator.

In rhetoric, anthimeria or antimeria, means using one part of speech as another, such as using a noun as a verb: "The little old lady turtled along the road." In linguistics, this is called conversion; when a noun becomes a verb, it is a denominal verb, when a verb becomes a noun, it is a deverbal noun.

The tilde is a grapheme ˜ or ~ with a number of uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish tilde, which in turn came from the Latin titulus, meaning 'title' or 'superscription'. Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in combination with a base letter. Its freestanding form is used in modern texts mainly to indicate approximation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LOL</span> Internet slang

LOL, or lol, is an initialism for laughing out loud, and a popular element of Internet slang, which can be used to indicate amusement, irony, or double meanings. It was first used almost exclusively on Usenet, but has since become widespread in other forms of computer-mediated communication and even face-to-face communication. It is one of many initialisms for expressing bodily reactions, in particular laughter, as text, including initialisms for more emphatic expressions of laughter such as LMAO and ROFL or ROTFL.

Irony punctuation is any form of notation proposed or used to denote irony or sarcasm in written text. Written text, in English and other languages, lacks a standard way to mark irony, and several forms of punctuation have been proposed to fill the gap. The oldest is the percontation point in the form of a reversed question mark, proposed by English printer Henry Denham in the 1580s for marking rhetorical questions, which can be a form of irony. Specific irony marks have also been proposed, such as in the form of an open upward arrow, used by Marcellin Jobard in the 19th century, and in a form resembling a reversed question mark, proposed by French poet Alcanter de Brahm during the 19th century.

The exclamation mark! is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or to show emphasis. The exclamation mark often marks the end of a sentence, for example: "Watch out!". Similarly, a bare exclamation mark is often used in warning signs. The exclamation mark is often used in writing to make a character seem as though they are shouting, excited, or surprised.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SMS language</span> Abbreviated slang used in text messaging

Short Message Service (SMS) language, textism, or textese is the abbreviated language and slang commonly used in the late 1990s and early 2000s with mobile phone text messaging, and occasionally through Internet-based communication such as email and instant messaging.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarcasm</span> Sharp, bitter remark

Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection with which it is spoken or, with an undercurrent of irony, by the extreme disproportion of the comment to the situation, and is largely context-dependent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irony</span> Rhetorical device and literary technique

Irony, in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected. It typically figures as a rhetorical device and literary technique. In some philosophical contexts, however, it takes on a larger significance as an entire way of life.

The full stop, period, or full point. is a punctuation mark used for several purposes, most often to mark the end of a declarative sentence.

Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture which says that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.

IPA Braille is the modern standard Braille encoding of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), as recognized by the International Council on English Braille.

An obelus is a term in codicology and latterly in typography that refers to a historical annotation mark which has resolved to three modern meanings:

References

Listen to this article (5 minutes)
Sound-icon.svg
This audio file was created from a revision of this article dated 5 October 2023 (2023-10-05), and does not reflect subsequent edits.
  1. Truss, Lynne (2003). Eats, Shoots & Leaves. p. 142. ISBN   1-59240-087-6.
  2. Houston, Keith (2013). Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. pp. 212–217. ISBN   978-0-393-06442-1.
  3. "Original Bboard Thread in which :-) was proposed". cs.cmu.edu. Retrieved October 12, 2021.
  4. 1 2 Zuckerman, Ori Manor (2021-10-08). "Council Post: The Importance Of Subtext In Digital Communications". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
  5. Khodak, Mikhail; Saunshi, Nikunj; Vodrahalli, Kiran (7–12 May 2018). "A Large Self-Annotated Corpus for Sarcasm" (PDF). Proceedings of the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference: 1. arXiv: 1704.05579 . Bibcode:2017arXiv170405579K. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  6. 1 2 "Tone Is Hard to Grasp Online. Can Tone Indicators Help?". New York Times. December 9, 2020. Archived from the original on 12 August 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  7. Jennings-Brown, Felicia. "A New Way to Communicate Emotion Has Emerged: Tone Indicators". The Science Survey. Retrieved 2022-05-09.
  8. "List of Twitter, Stan Slang - R74n". r74n.com. Tone Indicators / Mood / Tone Tag List. Retrieved 2022-07-12.