Thursday, July 30, 2015

grammar - When -s is used with third person singular. What's its use in this context?


During a conversation


My friend wrote •shrugs•



Why shrugs not shrug?


She was the one who did it then why third person singular form?



Answer



It is becoming increasingly common during text messaging to write actions as if they are from a script, for example, words like laughs or shrugs describe an action that the other person is doing but you cannot see over a text message.


TV and movie scripts are often written this way:



BOB
WHY DID YOU WRITE THAT?


JOHN
[SHRUGS]




The tense makes sense in a script because it is a prompt to say what happens. I guess this has just found its way into text-messaging as I have seen it done quite a few times.


It is also possible that your friend tried to send some kind of emoji that is named "shrugs" and you just saw a text representation of it.


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