Tone indicator
A tone indicator, also called a tone tag, is a shorthand symbol or abbreviation that conveys the intended tone, intent or emotional context of a written message that might otherwise be ambiguous. In essence, it is a form of meta‑communication: a cue that supplements the literal text with guidance on how the message should be interpreted.
Tone indicators are typically represented by a forward slash (/) followed by a few letters, such as /s for "sarcastic" or /gen for "genuine". They are most often placed at the end of a sentence and are especially common in casual online communication.
Because written communication lacks the nonverbal cues of face‑to‑face interaction – such as vocal inflection, facial expressions, and body language – tone indicators serve as their textual substitutes to reduce misinterpretation. Tone indicators are often used heavily within the autistic community, as the lack of context for the message is often confusing or misleading [1]
History
[edit]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.[2]
In 1668, John Wilkins 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.[3] In 1982, the emoticon was created to be used to denote jokes (with :-)) or things that are not jokes (with :-().[4]
The syntax of modern tone indicators stems from /s, which has long been used on the internet to denote sarcasm.[5] This symbol is an abbreviated version of the earlier /sarcasm, itself a simplification of </sarcasm>,[6] the form of a humorous XML closing tag marking the end of a "sarcasm" block, and therefore placed at the end of a sarcastic passage.
Internet usage
[edit]On the internet, 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 (/) 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 (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.[5][7]
| Abbreviation | Meaning | Description |
|---|---|---|
/s |
sarcasm | Used to denote sarcasm. |
/srs |
serious | Used to denote seriousness. |
/j |
joking | Used to denote jokes. |
/hj |
half-joking | Used to denote hyperboles or serious underlying intent. |
/gen or /genq |
genuine; genuine question | Used to denote genuineness, whether in a phrase or question. |
/lh |
lighthearted | Used to denote lightheartedness and cheerfulness. |
See also
[edit]- /s – Proposed form of notation used to denote irony or sarcasm in text
- Irony punctuation – Proposed form of notation used to denote irony or sarcasm in text
- Meta-communication – Communication about how information is meant to be interpreted
- Internet slang – Slang languages used by different people on the Internet
- Poe's law – Confusion of parody and sincere expression
References
[edit]
- ^ "Exploring Tone Tags in the context of autism". jadeaba.org. Retrieved October 10, 2025.
- ^ Truss, Lynne (2003). Eats, Shoots & Leaves. p. 142. ISBN 1-59240-087-6.
- ^ Houston, Keith (2013). Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. pp. 212–217. ISBN 978-0-393-06442-1.
- ^ "Original Bboard Thread in which :-) was proposed". cs.cmu.edu. Retrieved October 12, 2021.
- ^ a b Zuckerman, Ori Manor (2021-10-08). "Council Post: The Importance Of Subtext In Digital Communications". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-10-12.
- ^ Khodak, Mikhail; Saunshi, Nikunj; Vodrahalli, Kiran (7–12 May 2018). "A Large Self-Annotated Corpus for Sarcasm" (PDF). Proceedings of the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference: 1. arXiv:1704.05579. Bibcode:2017arXiv170405579K. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
Reddit users have adopted a common method for sarcasm annotation consisting of adding the marker "/s" to the end of sarcastic statements; this originates from the HTML text delineation <sarcasm>...</sarcasm>.
- ^ a b "Tone Is Hard to Grasp Online. Can Tone Indicators Help?". New York Times. December 9, 2020. Archived from the original on 12 August 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
- ^ Jennings-Brown, Felicia. "A New Way to Communicate Emotion Has Emerged: Tone Indicators". The Science Survey. Retrieved 2022-05-09.