A tone indicator or tone tag is a symbol attached to a sentence or message sent in a textual form, such as over the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

, to explicitly state the intonation or intent of the message, especially when it may be otherwise ambiguous. Tone indicators start with a forward slash (/), followed by a short series of letters, usually a shortening of another word. Examples include /j, meaning "joking"; /srs, meaning "serious"; or /s, meaning "sarcastic".

History

Early attempts to create tone indicators stemmed from the difficulty of denoting irony in print media, and so several irony punctuation marks were proposed. The '' percontation point'' (⸮; a reversed question mark) was proposed by Henry Denham in the 1580s to denote a rhetorical question, but usage died out by the 1700s. In 1668,

John Wilkins John Wilkins, (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an Anglican clergyman, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death. Wilkins is one of the f ...

proposed the '' irony mark'', using an inverted exclamation mark (¡) to denote an ironic statement. Various other punctuation marks were proposed over the following centuries to denote irony, but none gained popular usage. In 1982, the

emoticon An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for "emotion icon", also known simply as an emote, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a person's feelings, m ...

was created to be used to denote jokes (with :-)) or things that are not jokes (with :-(). The syntax of modern tone indicators stems from '' /s'', which has long been used on the internet to denote

sarcasm Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection ...

. This symbol is an abbreviated version of the earlier /sarcasm, itself a simplification of </sarcasm>, the form of a humorous

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...

closing tag marking the end of a "sarcasm" block, and therefore placed at the end of a sarcastic passage.

Internet usage

On the

, one or more tone indicators may be placed at the end of a message. A tone indicator on the internet often takes the form of a

forward slash The slash is the oblique slanting line punctuation mark . Also known as a stroke, a solidus or several other historical or technical names including oblique and virgule. Once used to mark periods and commas, the slash is now used to represe ...

(/) followed by an abbreviation of a relevant adjective; alternatively, a more detailed textual description (e. g., / friendly, caring about your well-being) may be used. For example, /srs may be attached to the end of a message to indicate that the message is meant to be interpreted in a serious manner, as opposed to, for example, being a

joke A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...

(which is commonly represented as /j). Tone indicators are used to explicitly state the author's intent, instead of leaving the message up to interpretation.

References

{{reflist Internet terminology

History

Internet usage

See also

References