I’d say it depends entirely on the history of communications between you, especially but not limited to texts. (This is also why I hate doing anything remotely substantial by text.) Was your clarification question typical for you, and does that sort of thing typically make your wife irritated?
You could have just said “OK, I’ll buy tickets now” and give her 5 minutes to respond before doing so. That’s what I would have done.
Seemed clear to me that she was telling you to buy them (caveat with you obviously know more about your communication style with your wife than I do). Your confusion was polite though so being upset and calling off the night seems wild to me.
I also think it’s weird to find tickets, ask someone else if they want to go, and then tell that other person to buy them.
I interpret “go ahead and buy tickets” as a request that you buy the tickets. I would rarely bother with a period in a text, and would use a question mark if i wanted to ask a question. I find your side of the conversation odd.
But i would also have expected your wife to buy the tickets after confirming you were interested and your son wasn’t available, rather than asking you to do so.
So i agree with @Roderick_Femm that it depends on how you two usually communicate, who usually buys stuff, etc., which you would know better than i.
I would guess there’s some other frustration there. Dunno if the cat just threw up on the couch or if it’s between the two of them. But I’d be annoyed by being challenged for not using a period in a text, too.
I don’t think he was “challenging”, but merely pointing out the ambiguity
caused by the omission of the period.
Her previous text however [1] … that was a bit snippy.
“Is this a trick question? Did you not see my text?” ↩︎
There’s no ambiguity in “go ahead and buy tickets” with no punctuation – you were supposed to buy them. The only way a question would be implied, sans question mark, would be in a construction like “have you got a sec”
But yeah, text strips all nuance and most context; if people are going to get tetchy about miscommunication, for heaven’s sake, just pick up the phone already. You were both out of line here.
The lack of punctuation after “….go ahead and buy tickets” seems to give you a tiny bit of ambiguous wiggle room, but not much. I would have interpreted that as, “Please, Hampshire, go ahead and buy the tickets for us.”
The ambiguity for me is not so much in the period itself or lack thereof, but in her initial text:
It sounds like she was already on the ticketing site and ready to buy, at least earlier in the day. So when she texts again about it, it doesn’t seem out of the question to wonder “is she already on the ticketing site again and about to buy the ticket?” — I would double-check, too, just to avoid a duplicate order because those can be hard to refund. Games are expensive, aren’t they?
But I’m also not sure about this part:
How does that work for hockey games? Is parking an add-on you’d normally buy along with the ticket (meaning she had by that point handed over responsibility for the whole night to you), or is it something you buy separately from another company (which I’d have interpreted as “I’ll buy the hockey tickets, you buy the parking”)?
In any case, however, I don’t see why this has to be a big deal? I go through this scenario frequently with my partner, whether for tickets or ordering take-out meals, and it just takes a couple “you order it and I’ll pick it up after work?”-type exchanges to clarify the situation, with zero hostility. Why would that be an argument when we’re both looking forward to the same thing and just figuring out logistics?
Was she upset at you for something else… like @puzzlegal hinted at?
Agree w @reply. She set a trap and the OP stepped in it.
Only they know whether this is typical predictable behavior or a one-off. I’m not suggesting it was malicious. But whether it’s commonplace sloppiness or unexpected sloppiness sure conditions how the OP is likely to respond.
The OP made a strategic error by not querying her immediately after the ambiguous txt.
FWIW, I always end texts with a period, !, or ?. And I ask people what they mean if there’s any way to misconstrue their stupid lazy lack of punctuation. I don’t say “stupid lazy”, but I think it real loud.
Unambiguous communication is the responsibility of the sender and takes deliberate work. Don’t want to do the work? Quit trying to communicate; you’ll just f*** it up.
I just looked at the last two pages of texts between my husband and myself. If i wrote more than one sentence, or if the sentence includes other punctuation (like a comma) i end with a period. If it’s just a single simple declarative statement, i don’t. And I’m moderately, but not perfectly, consistent. Every question ends with a question mark.
To younger generations, using proper punctuation in a casual context like texting can give an impression of formality that borders on rudeness, as if the texter is not comfortable enough with the texting partner to relax…
Simply put, the inclusion of a formality in casual communication is unnerving. Think of a mother using her son’s full name when issuing a stern ultimatum. Or of an upset lover speaking to a partner in a cool, professional tone, withholding intimate silliness and warmth to convey frustration.
How a closing period is received definitely depends on age, but the age at which it is perceived negatively has been expanding. If you choose to march to your own drummer on this, be prepared for people to misinterpret your messages. Or as stated by a linguist:
“There’s a tendency for people to believe that the rules they learned in school are fixed and unchangeable and everything after that is a barbarism, but that’s not how society works,” Ms. McCulloch said. “The fashions are different from when you were in school, words are different, and punctuation can be different too.”
