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It may be limited to the web ecosystem, but I've read a lot of those sentences lately, where each word is followed by a period.

Examples:

Oh. My. God.

Best. Job. Ever.

No. F***ing. Way.

Putting each word on its own hints the readers should give their full attention to each and every one of them.

Does this technique have a name? Can its origin be traced back to a book or article?

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    Punctuated Pounding
    – JoseK
    Commented Sep 8, 2011 at 9:18
  • @JoseK Is that a comment or an answer? (rhetorical question)
    – Waggers
    Commented Sep 8, 2011 at 12:59
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    My wife and I call it The William Shatner School of Acting.
    – rajah9
    Commented Sep 8, 2011 at 13:34
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    @JoseK link broken.
    – NVZ ♦
    Commented May 12, 2016 at 14:36
  • 1
    @rajah9: +1! I came here for this... leaving satisfied.
    – djm
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 21:55

6 Answers 6

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Technically, the simplest answer would be "punctuated speech."

punctuated — emphasize something: to do or say something in order to add emphasis

But this specific pattern is extremely common in music and goes by the term "staccato". The Wikipedia entry has some good examples of music played with and without staccato and it perfectly matches the vocalized pattern used when reading this type of passage out loud.

The dictionary definition includes this:

staccato — composed of or characterized by abruptly disconnected elements; disjointed: rapid-fire, staccato speech.

The key part of staccato is not the speed at which is played but the disjointed, punctuated feeling of each note or word.

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  • "staccato speech" is the name of a symptom, principally a symptom of multiple sclerosis, where a person speaks prounouncing each syllable distinctly. I suppose you could use the term for this style of writing, too, though. I didn't downvote your answer, btw.
    – Cyberherbalist
    Commented Dec 20, 2013 at 17:33
  • @Cyberherbalist: Whoa, I did not know that. Interesting. Is there a significant difference between "staccato speech" and "stuttering"?
    – MrHen
    Commented Dec 20, 2013 at 17:35
  • From what I've read, yes. Stuttering isn't like it at all. Check this: medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/staccato+speech
    – Cyberherbalist
    Commented Dec 20, 2013 at 17:48
  • "staccato" is not a good comparison. Staccato in music is achieved by shortening each note while keeping the same tempo, thus creating separation between the notes. When these period-after-every-word sentences are spoken, the word lengths remain the same (or are lengthened), and the spaces between the words are lengthened. This changes the tempo of the phrase.
    – Sildoreth
    Commented Dec 20, 2013 at 21:51
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Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. That's your answer.

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    Can you provide any links to back up your answer? Moreover, not everyone is familiar with Comic Book Guy, me for example.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Aug 2, 2013 at 5:11
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    What?! You're not familiar with Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons?! I don't know what CBG has to do with the answer to the question, but look here for your link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_book_guy
    – Cyberherbalist
    Commented Dec 20, 2013 at 17:38
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    @Mari-LouA I just noticed that the way CBG says "Worst [subject] ever!" is pronounced as if it were "Worst. Episode. Ever." It's his catch-phrase. That's not an answer, though, it's merely an example.
    – Cyberherbalist
    Commented Dec 20, 2013 at 17:49
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    Nope, no idea who this fellow is I'm afraid. I know who the Simpsons are, their kids, and snowflake, the dog? And I agree with you, that CBG's catchphrase is only an example.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Dec 20, 2013 at 17:56
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    This isn't a well-sourced answer but it might be correct. The Simpsons has been around long enough and been influential enough to potentially have sparked a meme like this one.
    – Chris Sunami
    Commented Dec 30, 2014 at 20:57
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For more on the Simpsons answer (unfortunately I do not have enough reputation to add to the comments), there was a forum for dedicated Simpsons fans called alt.tv.simpsons which may be the source of the multiple periods. One of the fans commented that one of the episodes was the worst episode ever. The writer David S. Cohen took that comment and used CBG as a response and forming his most quoted catchphrase "Worst. Episode. Ever." I believe the first instance of CBG saying this is in the 1997 episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show." I had already heard this story but had trouble finding a source. Wikipedia references it in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt.tv.simpsons#Relationship_with_the_writers

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In English the period is really meant to indicate a long pause in speaking (like would happen at the end of a sentence). As such, I suspect its history of use to designate long pauses for emphasis in this way goes back pretty much as far as the period itself does.

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    I doubt its history is even remotely that old. I've read hundreds of thousands of articles, books, essays, advertisements, stories, screenplays, poems, and more, over the last five decades, and I've never encountered it until sometime within the last few years.
    – John M. Landsberg
    Commented Mar 7, 2013 at 9:35
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It's going to be difficult to trace. There must, of course, be a initial appearance of this usage in writing, but that may be ephemeral. Now it's popping up all over the place, especially in advertisements. It seems to me to have originated in common speech, when someone -- with tongue lightly inserted in cheek and mildly humorous intent -- said something with that particular phrasing, in order to emphasize the superlative, thus: "Man, I went to Las Vegas and won a million bucks playing bingo, and that actress Jennifer what's-her-name invited me to her Oscar party in L.A., and I got picked to star in the new James Bond movie, and that was just Saturday! Best. Weekend. Ever."

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I.don't.know.where.this.practice.started; however, it has been around since before the era of computers. I found a picture of a stone on a building in Stirling, Scotland in 1898 that used periods between words. This stone was cut from the original building in Scotland and sent to Utah to make the monument as portrayed below and as described in Chapter 42 of an LDS history.
what-e'er-thou-art stone

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    That just looks like an interpunct / mid-dot. The romans used this, especially in architecture.
    – tdhsmith
    Commented Sep 8, 2011 at 17:06
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    That’s merely a word separator; it’s unrelated to the usage under discussion. Such separators are not uncommon in inscriptions; lettuce_pants mentioned Roman examples, and they’re also common in runic inscriptions.
    – Brian M. Scott
    Commented Sep 8, 2011 at 22:08
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    Agree with the previous two commenters, but +1 for the sentiment in the monument, and for David O. McKay.
    – Cyberherbalist
    Commented Dec 20, 2013 at 17:35

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