Same Old Sorceress

Spin the wheel to find out your weakness!

This is really exciting, linguistically speaking.

Because it’s not true that Tumblr never uses punctuation. But it is true that lack of punctuation has become, itself, a form of punctuation. On Tumblr the lack of punctuation in multisentence-long posts creates the function of rhetorical speech, or speech that is not intended to have an answer, usually in the form of a question. Consider the following two potential posts. Each individual line should be taken as a post:

ugh is there any particular reason people at work have to take these massive handfuls of sauce packets they know they’re not going to use like god put that back we have to pay for that stuff

Ugh. Is there any particular reason people at work have to take these massive handfuls of sauce packets they know they’re not going to use? Like god, put that back. We have to pay for that stuff.

In your head, those two potential posts sound totally different. In the first one I’m ranting about work, and this requires no answer. The second may actually engage you to give an answer about hoarding sauce packets. And if you answer the first post, you will likely do so in the same style. 

Here’s what makes this exciting: the English language has no actual punctuation for rhetorical speech–that is, there are no special marks that specifically indicate “this speech is in the abstract, and requires no answer.” Not only that, it never has. The first written record of English (actually proto-English, predating even Old English) dates to the 400s CE, so we’re talking about 1600 years of having absolutely no marker whatsoever for rhetorical speech.

A group of teens and young adults on a blogging website literally reshaped a deficit a millennium and a half old in our language to fit their language needs. More! This group has agreed on a more or less universal standard for these new rules, which fits the definition of “language.” Which is to say Tumblr English is its own actual, real, separate dialect of the English language, and because it is spoken by people worldwide who have introduced concepts from their own languages into it, it may qualify as a written form of pidgin. 

The tags are absolutely a factor. You want someone to take a breath in the middle of a sentence, you start a new tag. You want to have, as seen here, this removable piece between commas (does it have a name?) - you have 5 tags in this sentence alone. And sometimes you just

pause in the middle of a sentence…

and let your voice

language is this constantly evolving thing tbh, it doesn’t remain the same unless it’s dead and the people who used it gone so seeing the evolution of the language used on tumblr is literally so fucking amazing i want to cry with joy at it

because we also add in words from other languages, or make entirely new words up as additional terms to denote something (see ‘tol’ and ‘smol’ in relation to ‘tall’ and ‘small’) and this is constant. we are doing this daily without any sort of breathing space because there’s millions of us on this hellsite and we are constantly talking and so the language changes day-by-day until we have general, universal rules for what to do in a post, what to add in our tags, how to add it, why we add it, what we mean by it

we’ve created a language in the same way our ancestors all did: by building on the ones that came before and changing them to suit our needs and our system

and that’s fucking awesome okay

What?

What.

Here's the vault for round 2. Don't forget, round 1 is still there for the taking, there's no time limit here - and please take a moment to read and comment on others' fics when you can. New prompts will drop on the 7th of September!

Your lines for stuffing are below the cut:

The Concussion Job by HopeCoppice

G, Gen: Nate wakes up without some key memories.

Stuffing: The Miracle Job

-

The Boost Job Flashback by K405Wr3n

T, Gen: A fic about how Parker might have felt in the aftermath of Kelly running away from the bait car boost.

Stuffing: The Two-Horse Job

-

Safe by beautifulscreaminglady

T, Gen: Archie asks his old friend Sophie Devereaux for help with a delicate matter ... taking Parker shopping for her first bra!

The Lazy Evening Job by HopeCoppice

M, Parker/Hardison/Eliot: It's just a quiet night in.

Stuffing: The Wedding Job

-

The Quittin' Time Job by HopeCoppice

T, Eliot/Moreau (or Eliot&Moreau): Eliot's contract has to end.

Stuffing: The Snow Job

-

The Noir Job by HopeCoppice

G, Gen: When the chips were down, there was only one guy in town left to turn to. And rumour had it, he was a mess.

Stuffing: The Mile High Job

-

The Treasure Cave Job by HopeCoppice

G, Gen: Hardison welcomes a new sibling to the gaming table.

-

Everything Blue by LimeFlamingo

M, Sophie/Nate: Nate's been having trouble focusing since that job at the airport with the little boy in the hospital. Sophie asks him about it.

Stuffing: The Two-Horse Job

-

The Nightmare Job by HopeCoppice

T, Sophie/Nate: Nate has a nightmare.

Stuffing: The Two-Horse Job

-

The Honeymoon Job by Hope Coppice

T, Hardison/Parker/Eliot: It had been Parker's idea. But she's glad they called.

Stuffing: The Homecoming Job

-