"English" Not Threatened By Webspeak

MudButt writes "Linguists say not to worry too much about Netspeak, otherwise known as the language of choice in chat rooms and IM clients. According to this Yahoo! article, linguists say that terms like "cya", "brb", "afk" are a healthy way of exploring the power of the written language. They went on to say "FYI, RTFA"!"

Comments

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[Buhanan]

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The wheels on the bus go round and round...

[The Kow]

I'm (not) sorry, but it strikes me as incredibly arrogant and history-repeated for a bunch of 30-something "those damn kids these days!" geeks to be chastising teenagers for their terrible and foolish Netspeak.

You don't have to use it. You don't have to accomodate people who do. You also have NOT been nominated to police the thoughts and minds of America's youth, and thank heavens you haven't, because I fear the results.

Let me clue some of you old farts into something: these are kids. Kids do not give a rat's ass about being professional. How long ago was it that you were a kid, scoffing at how those silly suits thought they could force you to be something you didn't want to be? One way or another, either you or those suits learned the truth, and life carried on. These kids will too.

Until you understand this point, please refrain from addressing this bugbear you call Netspeak like it's anything more than another display of youthful rebelliousness. Most of you probably spelled as poorly as these kids do now, you just didn't have or use a place like IRC or AIM to put your own incapacity under the microscope, or if you did, nobody ever called you on it either.

(Background: I'm a 25 year old software engineer who's been using the internet as a social and creative outlet for 12 years. I play video games and I often use netspeak as an enjoyable and exaggerated self-parody. Yet I still seem perfectly capable of writing in complete, moderately articulate sentences - I'd gladly put my literacy up against anyone else's who felt they had something to prove. I'm not terribly impressed with kids who use netspeak as a means to communicate with me about anything serious, but I certainly don't feel impelled or called upon to level heavy-handed judgements upon their wayward youthful souls.)

anal much?

[crabpeople]

wow. i would always say ability to pwn whorde and help your guildmembers thru instances would be high on my list. not being a condescending grumpity old man.

because theres nothing 'funner' than being a guild that feigns misunderstanding in the heat of battle./

the only thing that pisses me off about kids is the ones that

spam
every
line
with
a
new
word
because
you
know
we
might
lose
interest