Explained: “Boomer Ellipses” In Texting And How Gen Z Is Reacting To It

A lot of things change as generations change, including fashion choices, eating habits, dating styles, mediums of communication and entertainment. Certain things will become part of everyday life as things change, while others are forgotten. As the older generation tries to adapt, some may become confused by this at times. One such trend is “Boomer Ellipses” which the new generation is trying to understand.

Several Gen Z internet users have reported in recent years that they witness older individuals, or more precisely “boomers”- those born between 1946 and 1964, using ellipses (three consecutive dots) excessively. However, these don’t sit well with the Gen Z. Ellipses are seen by younger people as a sign of hesitancy or passive aggression. This application of ellipses is known as “boomer ellipses”

Why do boomers use ellipses so much?
byu/Bababool inNoStupidQuestions

This became viral after a Reddit post said, “The normal tech-savvy person uses ellipses to basically say, ‘I wanna say more but I won’t.’ But boomers use it all the time. Almost every professional email, slack, or text message I receive is always something along ‘Yes… that works…'” Many users commented on the post.

“Generational differences. I’m sure Boomers are asking, “Why don’t Zoomers use proper capitalization or punctuation?” Both answers: Stylistic choices that reflect their respective generations,” said a user.

Another added, “I would take “Yes…that works…” as meaning they have some nitpick they would like to bring up but it’s not worth it.”

“As a GenX I use elipses, but only where there’s an unsaid implication. Sort of like ‘You said you’d think about the answer and get back to me in 5 minutes. It has been 10, so…’ Somethng like ‘Thanks…’ implies to me they’re not sure about saying thank you, or there’s more to come. Leaving that hanging is just idiotic,” remarked a person.

A user commented, “The same reason young people end phrases with lol and lmao even when they aren’t saying anything funny.”

“I’m not a boomer but I used them frequently. It provides visual context in order to get a point across better by adding a pause, a brief moment of respite; or to add a hint of inflection to my text. These are used pretty often in writting and in books so it’s not too far fetched to use them in every day writing,” wrote a person.

Adam Aleksic, a “linguistics influencer” on Instagram recently attempted to theorise why Gen Z doesn’t use ellipses but boomers do. Ellipses technically imply a pause that something has been purposefully omitted according to punctuation rules. However, when it comes to text-based electronic communication, its use frequently varies. “It’s because they (boomers) grew up following different rules for informal communication. Nowadays, if you want to separate an idea, you just press enter and start a new line with a new thought. But it made less sense for writing postcards or letters where you had to save space. So people back in the day learnt to separate thoughts by using ellipses.”

He added, “Same with early SMS texting. You were charged more efficient to charge more ideas within a single text and boomers got used to that. However, with rise of unlimited texting, it became even more efficient to separate thoughts with different messages, so that became the new grammatical standard online. That means the boomer ellipses became redundant, which is why they cause confusion today.”