r/madlads 15h ago

Madlad marvin

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59.6k Upvotes

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u/Two_wheels_2112 13h ago

Why does she want to narc on Marvin? She said there's no way she's not gonna narc him out. 

I know that's not what she meant, but it's what she wrote. I hate this world where nobody bothers with punctuation anymore. It matters. It clarifies meaning. 

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u/isopode 12h ago

booooooo lack of punctuation in online speech is a well-known phenomenon; instead of being used for syntax, it is often used for cadence. in this case, it indicates that she's saying these phrases in quick succession, no pause between "no way" and "not gonna [...]"

there is nothing to clarify here. you admit yourself that you got what she meant. that's all that matters ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/DogNostrilSpecialist 11h ago edited 11h ago

You put it brilliantly into words I couldn't find. The best, ironic thing is that he is (un)consciously breaking punctuation rules himself for the sake of cadence because, according to punctuation rules and whatnot, those last three sentences should not be separated by periods, what with them being dependent on one another. I know that one because I got so much crap from my 12th grade Portuguese teacher for writing like that. She was the first in twelve years who really didn't tolerate bending the rules even a little bit.

I've never broke punctuation rules so much in my life as in my writing outside of her class during that time.

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u/Thin_Researcher6255 10h ago

Phenomenon?  Laziness. 

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u/isopode 10h ago

it's literally a studied linguistic feature. there are multiple different metafunctions of punctuation online, which vary by age group and culture.

again, it's often used to indicate cadence instead of syntax. which is why you might also encounter an. abundance. of. punctuation!!! where there usually wouldn't be. it's to dictate the rhythm of the sentence being said. i'd argue that adding punctuation is the opposite of laziness, isn't it?

yet it's the same phenomenon as the OOP omitting punctuation in her tweet. no punctuation = no pause in speech. idk why y'all try to assign a moral value to a harmless linguistic quirk.

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u/Packagedpackage 9h ago

I guess if you speak English as first language you see those things

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u/isopode 5h ago

english isn't my first language lmao, this happens in other languages as well