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how 2 write like me

{:toc}

how 2 write like me thought up independently of but encouraged by the existence of xanthe's style guide as well as chridd's list of neologisms if this interests you then so may jan Misali's punctuation analysis

markup

case

i write in all lowercase by default, not making exceptions for the pronoun i nor proper names (except toki pona ones) when capitalization does occur it's usually used for emphasis (e.g. it just Doesn't Work Like That)

numbers

i almost always write numbers as digits, except in compounds like twofold and such

punctuation

general rule: punctuation represents not only grammar things but also how the text would be intonated if it were spoken

no period at the end of the sentence other than to clarify intonation (e.g. huh. as opposed to huh which feels like a question), or rarely a serious tone non-question non-exclamation sentences are instead most commonly separated with line breaks, sometimes with commas, rarely with semicolons this can cause ambiguity when the end of one sentence ends up on the right side of the screen, making it look like it continues into the next line (this website avoids it by making each sentence a "paragraph" with minimal padding and making actual paragraphs be <div>s) commas and question marks are also often omitted except where that would cause ambiguity multiple commas (2 by default, can even be 1 sometimes) are used as ellipses, which is quite popular among youngins it seems oxford comma is yes

quotation marks

my brain likes to interpret quotation marks as scare quotes even when they're not, so instead i used to tend to use backticks (`), which due to markdown makes the text look like code in places like reddit and discord and this website this doesn't really happen anymore but i'll keep it on this page because why not when i intend to do scare quotes i often multiply them a bunch, e.g. """""dubious""""" when discussing other languages (e.g. toki pona), i use backticks to quote that language and quotation marks for english, with angle quotes («») used for tertiary languages

when periods etc exist, i put the ending punctuation of a quoted sentence inside the quotation marks and the ending punctuation of the outer sentence outside the quotation marks; should be common sense but apparently it isn't (though i do admit doubled punctuation can look a bit weird, e.g. They said "Let's go.".)

apostrophe

very important, almost never omitted (unlike most other lowercase users)

asterisk

the usual usage is for roleplay, a la *nuzzles u*, which usually turns into italics when using it for corrections i do *you're instead of the you're* that many seem to do, because the latter implies that there's a footnote attached to it rather than it being the footnote

slash

regular usage: i want a cat/dog/whatever square brackets when part of word: i want a [boy/girl/enby]friend spaces around slashes when more than one word: i want sugar / spice / everything nice (or i want sugar/spice/everything·nice)

i write reddit notation with a slash at the start: /u/SonjaLang posted on /r/tokipona i usually prefer a slash at the end of a url: {{ page.url | absolute_url }}

square brackets

aside from the above i also use them for marking content warnings, e.g. [spooky] <spoiler>boo</spoiler>

used with @ for marking topics: @[long animals] weasels are pretty underrated tbh

colon

sometimes used for: queen deltarune's secondary typing quirk

tilde

used at the start of a word to mean "about/roughly", e.g. ~every means "pretty much every" used at the end of a word for a singsongy tone that one might associate with intimacy~

interpunct

the interpunct (·) is so cool that it gets a special shortcut on my keyboard, altgr + . (and you can do it too with autohotkey™) i use it to mark suffixes after single letters or acronyms (nft·s, ssh·ing, but ddos'd), as well as "clarify" hyphen nesting order

strikethrough

strikethrough marks sentences that i'd mumble under my breath in speech, sorta like /j sadly this is misunderstood by others often enough that i have hts set as a shortcut for hence the strikethrough

trademark sign

a trademark sign can mark that a given word/phrase has a,, special meaning i guess? kinda like the Soon™ meme but with a broader fuzzier harder to define meaning (maybe it's just emphasis or random spice who knows)

arrows

on pc i have wincompose, on android i have gboard and emoji most common is which i use to refer to the previous message (where others use ^) i like sometimes replacing directions like top right with the corresponding arrows ()

in roleplay

  • italics (or *asterisks* if no markdown) for actions and emphasis ()
  • (parentheses) for in-character asides
  • [square brackets] for thoughts/telepathy
  • {curly braces} for out-of-character

grammar

verb all the nouns, mispluralize all the wordi, doubly pluralize all the pluralses, if it looks funny then do it

casualness

  • technically-unnecessary filler, so like y'know the uh,, yeah )every so often i wanna stop using it but then i don't)
  • i often quote memes instead of speaking normally, which might partly be due to autism idk
  • initial i is omitted sometimes (i think because once i tried out a writing style stats thing and it said i use it a lot and i've been self-conscious about that ever since)

no textspeak abbreviations though, except specific ones (and acronyms like tbh, mfw, etc)

uncasualness

  • i sometimes go sesquipedalian, either for comedic effect or because i genuinely don't know the simple word for the given thing (which doesn't mean i'll use the complex word correctly)
  • 2 (two) is funny

pedantry

  • i use one instead of generic you because it makes more sense to me (though i'm having trouble getting used to doing it and end up writing you first before changing it)
  • when marking for possession, i add 's even after words that already end in s (e.g. tails's tools), unless they're plural
  • i'm specific about my negation placement (sometimes), distinguishing between e.g. not supposed to (where doing the thing might be fine) and supposed not to (where doing the thing is explicitly not fine)

unpedantry

  • incorrect articles/pluralization, e.g. a goats or even an goats

leftism

  • no generic he, gender-neutrality all the way (even in polish); example people can get random pronouns though (including neopronouns)
  • no intelligence-based insults, so no r-word but also no e.g. dumb (silly is fine as it has a positive tone)

extrapolation

  • if don't can be a thing then why not y'all'dn't've (= you all would not have)
  • if the plural of octopus is octopi then for corpus i'll do corpi and you can't stop me (not in serious writing though)
  • somewhat relevant is forcing local patterns, such as alliteration (e.g. special spoon spection (from "section")) or pluralization (i don't want 2 bottles i want 1 bottles)
  • extrapolating metaphors is fun, e.g. they call me a jack of all trades but i feel more like a 9

regionality

generally american english but i feel like e.g. labelled looks better than labeled usually 24-hour time except when it feels wrong or ambiguous, in which case 12-hour time without a space before the period name (e.g. 4:20am) for dates i do year-month-day, as in iso-8601, or rather html syntax which allows a space between time and date and also allows partial notation (though for month-day i do a single preceding hyphen instead of two, a la -04-20)

word replacements

some applied more consistently than others

funny (mis)spellings

word replacement
*a *er/*ess
*ae* *æ*
*ed (rarely) em*ed, (rarelier) *eded
*er, *or *eur (a la auteur)
*k *que (rarely)
a (rarely) an
angry angy, (rarely) angery
animal aminal
anyway anyhoo
boxes boxen (i already covered mispluralizations but this one's special to me)
broken borked
bruh brug
christmas crimbus
coincidence codinkydonk, coinkydink
color coloure
comfortable comforble
computer compute, computational
conlang clong, conglang, conlangue
damn (adjective/adverb) damb
damn (interjection) dayum
delete dete
ears earce
emoji emoj, emojo, emojum
gaming game ing
gi* (in software names, e.g. github, gimp) ji*
god dog
good morning goob morbing, goob borbibg
gray græy
hecking heckign
hello henlo
horse honse, horce, (rarely) homse
inb4 inb5
interesting inchresting, injrezding (spoken only)
internet interweb
it's iss
my me (rarely)
news mews (rarely)
newspaper newspapre
non(-)binary nonbiney, (rarely) non(-)binanry
pony poney
potato(es) potat(s), potate(s), tater(s)
pretty (as in cute) prebby
ram (as in computer) dedotated wam
sleep* eep*
smh smhead
thanks thank, thancc, thanque
tiny tiney
titty tity
tragedy tradegy
website webbed sight
who whom
woah woag
wtf wtfluff

of brands

word replacement
discord disk( )orb
disney didney
linux linuck
microsoft microdollarsignoft
pokémon pokèmon (note the grave instead of acute), pokèmen (plural)
tetris tetrum, tetroid
toki pona tonky, (rarely) tonky ponky
windows window

abbreviations

word replacement
[pronoun] has/have (as in possess) [pronoun]'s/'ve
ah a
alright aight
bruh b
bullshit bull
did you 'dyou
do you d'you (important distinction)
i don't know iunno, dunno, idk (rarely)
i'm am
it was 'twas
it's 's, 'tis
need to needa
need to be need
nope nop
oh o
pretty (as in quite) p
probably prolly
question q
something sth, sumn
today i learned til
unfortunately unforchly
what (standalone) wha, wh, ?
yeah ya, ye, yea, yeh

Making Sense™

word replacement
*phobe (as in prejudiced) *miser (not always)
*phobic (as in prejudiced) anti-*
ai (as in big generative model trained on half the internet) language model, chat model, generative model, genai
america (as in usa) the us
art (as in visual) illustration(s), drawing(s), picture(s), ...
furry (as in humanoid animal) anthro
good (as in response to "how are you") the usual
google (as in verb) look up
lol (as in league of legends) league
real name (as in not internet name) legal name
singlet (as in not plural) singular

assorted replacements

word replacement
-one, -body -pony
butt bum
criterion criterium (extrapolating from criteria, feels intuitive enough that i didn't realize it wasn't the canonical form)
hdd spinny drive
hivemind (as in one mind, many bodies, e.g. my fox sona) multipresence (makes it clearer that there only is and ever was a single mind)
on the * hand on the * hoof
pirate (as in to download paid media for free) yar har, yarhar
what the hell (sometimes) what the hay
years ago yonks ago

neologisms

  • foove (rarely the original foof) - playful insult (how did you miss that you foove)
  • khhh - like pfff but velar (in the back of the mouth) instead of labial (in the lips)

commonly used things

phrases

  • tentative
  • good question
  • shan't
  • fair (as its own message)
  • quarter-decent
  • oh dear
  • granted (a la to be fair)
  • ope (interjection for turns out this exists)
  • [vague/mild/moderate/()] temptation to
  • i am once again asking
  • hoo lordy
  • ok i'll
  • nom (especially for things like chess pieces or data input)
  • or well
  • methinks
  • paging (= pinging)
  • $5 says
  • amend
  • genre/flavor/brand (instead of type)
  • courtesy of
  • a tad
  • some (after a verb, instead of a bit)
  • que (spanish for what, i use it as an interjection)
  • a [few/couple] more for the road
  • you go girl
  • thoughts on (instead of do you wanna)
  • cannot into
  • and and and / or or or
  • would you be willing to

acronyms

  • mf - motherfucking (but i rarely use the full version)
  • ngl - not gonna lie
  • afai[k/r/ct] - as far as i [know / remember / can tell]
  • iirc - if i recall correctly
  • mfw - my face when (usually no image attached though so it's more like an intensifier i guess)

emojoids

  • :despair:
  • :loggers:
  • :orwell:
  • :trollface: (i don't have it as a hotkey yet so i just write :tro: as text, which i imagine as a very low-res trollface)
  • 😭 (😭)
  • 💀 (💀)
  • 😔 (😔)
  • 😌 (😌)
  • 🤔 (🤔)
  • 😎 (😎)
  • :newspaper2: (🗞, meant as a "bonk"-type thing)
  • 🎉 (🎉)
  • 😈 (😈)
  • 😍 (😍)
  • 😳 (😳)
  • 👀 (👀)
  • 😤 (😤)
  • 🥺 (🥺)
  • 🙏 (🙏)
  • o/ (an emoticon, not an emoji; represents a wave a la "hello"; \o for "goodbye")
  • ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (famous shrug emoticon)
  • >: (angy like >:( but mouthless)

pronunciation

(this section uses the international phonetic alphabet to notate pronunciation)

my target accent is american-ish but since i tend to pronounce vowels like in polish it ends up being kinda british

i like pronouncing as /ts/ (like in polish), distinguishing between e.g. <cis> and <sis>

i jokingly pronounce with an overenunciated /χ/, and seriously with a /g/

uncategorized things

  • repetition of things, e.g. hmhmhm
  • lists are cool (such as this one), and i'll sometimes do,, i wanna say a meme format? where i go like cool new pants / ☑ cool / ☑ new / ☑ pants
  • when doing numbered lists i'll often do 1) b) or a) 2), usually then continued with iii) four)
  • when sending several messages that [start with / are] the same word i'll often add superscript numbers to them, e.g. looks impressive / but it's impractical / but² i wanna use it anyway / but³ idk what for
  • in chat, --- in its own line marks a topic change; in conversations with my nerd friend i instead use !rel as in "unrelated" (and rel for related and ~rel for quasi-related)
  • tonetags i use: /gen (genuine, neither joking nor sarcastic), /ref (reference), sometimes /j (joking) but i prefer strikethrough for that
  • au notation (fell!sans) for other things (e.g. preverb!alasa)
  • cutting sentences off, e.g. anyway here's
  • removing articles, e.g. how do i make thing do thing
  • i know it shouldn't matter but things like amature or existance or made it's rounds bug me because They're Not Correct!!
  • some people do . as a mid-sentence pause, it's cool but i don't do it (yet?)
  • i haven't actually done it much but i've had the idea to refer to the left/right sides of an image as west/east, so that it's not confused for the character's left/right
  • in speech i sometimes pronounce as /ts/ (like in polish) where others would do /s/, e.g. in cis
  • [] for placeholders, e.g. if you're a []loid fan please talk to me
  • if there's 2 options that people fight over then i might make up a 3rd, kinda to make fun of it
    • /gɪf/ or /dʒɪf/? how about /χɪf/
    • color or colour? how about coloure
    • autistic or with autism? how about be-autism'd
  • sed replacement syntax instead of asterisks, e.g. spike is best pony | s/spike/gummy/ (discord actually supports editing with this which makes it take a bit more effort to actually send it, i usually do a backslash before the first slash to avoid it)
  • never farther, only further
  • - at the start of a line for a,, sudden start i wanna say, e.g. -oh actually
  • i don't use frick, it just sounds eh to me personally

deprecated

i used to capitalize the name Ralsei and all pronouns referring to Him him, due to a running gag in the ralsei bot discord server that he's a god

other languages

polish

not much to say other than that interpuncts come before suffixes for foreign words (microsoft·u) and that for people of unknown gender i like to use ligatures (zrobiłæś) and naturally genderless forms (zdarzyło ci się zrobić) also very insistent about potatoes being ziemniaki not kartofle

toki pona

sentences on the same line are split with an interpunct with spaces on either side in semi-formal writing, interpuncts are also added at the start and end of the line (for æsthetic symmetry), disambiguating automatic mid-sentence line breaks from intentional ones commas around la and after taso are not used, but the function of a semicolon after ni is fulfilled by an arrow pointing right; arrows can also point left to function as a backwards semicolon of sorts example:

· open pi tenpo suno ni la mi kama lukin e ni → soweli li moku e kasi ale mi ← ni li ike tawa mi · taso mi ken ala ike tawa soweli tan suwi ona · {:lang="tok"}

i (usually) don't use meli/mije/tonsi, oko, epiku, or puwa (i think of ko as mostly meaning "squish" and would rather have a nimisin for "powder") i do use namako, kin, kipisi, monsuta, leko, n, majuna, linluwi, kiki, taki, and te/to (but mostly just te as a sort of headnoun, e.g. te "kipisi" li pona)

i don't use tawa as "for", as in mi pali tawa pona jan → "i work for the good of humanity" i also don't use pali as a generic verb, but rather only "work (a job)" and "create"; for "i do something" i do mi ijo (e ijo)

i enjoy transitive preposition phrases, e.g. mi tawa ma Pasiju e sina = mi tawa e sina tawa ma Pasiju i also enjoy modifying preverbs and prepositions with things other than ala, hyphenating them for clarity, e.g. mi sona-wawa toki pona = sona mi pi toki pona li wawa

i usually don't tokiponize names except sometimes really well-known ones, like ma Pasiju for brazil above, ma Mewika for the us (though i prefer ma Juwese), toki Inli for english, ilo Siko for discord i guess, i like putting them in sitelen·pona-esque cartouches, e.g. ilo [GitHub], supposedly so that i can disambiguate toki pona from toki [pona] but mostly it's just quirky

kin la ("also,") becomes just kin, for symmetry with taso

i use pona only as "good" and wile only as "want" and i Will rant about this i also think pilin might be a preverb but eh