[DF] Faun Barbarian - Bessarion

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Text has no tone.

That's simply not true. Text, when crafted into sentences to form a narrative, most certainly can have tone. It is affected by cultural norms, agreed or accepted understandings of certain words or combinations, local idiom, and more.

Tone can be set through the specific language, the content, the plot, the psychology of the characters, political and personal context, and more.

"For sure" and "OK" essentially mean the same thing, but they convey it differently. "Whatever" certainly has cultural variations and expectations when it's used.

Various slang or vulgar words convey different tones depending on their context or cultural history.

The suggestion (made by another) that punctuation is required to set tone is simply wrong, but perhaps the result (in some cases) of the modern influx of emojis to ensure the tone is understood. And that's a feature of writing on the internet. When I first encountered the 'net in '91, (and BBSs before that), it was clear that most people didn't spend too much time to craft their messages, and because of the instant expansion of access to different cultures, backgrounds, language skills, and so on, it was easy for people to misread the intent of a writer who wasn't interested in polishing the text, just sending it. So then, the importance of emojis arose. A old friend who frequented one particular FIDOnet echo used to sign off from his point with "Deem smilies included". A lawyer with an androgynous name who was masterful with language, and mostly taking the **** with the sign off.

That said, punctuation does come into it. Along with word choice, personal pronouns, consistency, empathy, and honesty.

So, yeah, text can have tone but we can't control how someone receives it. We can attempt to present it with clarity, and the best writers will most often achieve that. The rest of us? Can be hit and miss.