"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

"English"

[daniil]

What's up with these quotation marks? Are you being ironic, and if, then why? English is a real language, you know...

Re:"English"

[PopeAlien]

Its not "netspeak" that threatens "english", but the "overuse" of "quotation marks" to put "emphasis" on "something"

Ah well, at least they didnt use the blink tag.

Re:"English"

[MudButt]

What's up with these quotation marks?

We shouldn't get "hung up" with things like the "misuse" of "punctuation". We're "geeks" and as such we should be "allowed" to "misuse" the English "language".

Re:"English"

[Anonymous Coward]

They obviously mean the English people, i.e. people born in England, are not threatened by webspeak.

Let that be a lesson, never swear at the English over IM because they just aren't offended.

Re:"English"

[ackthpt]

It could be an overuse of quotation marks, or it could be a sarcastic reference to the false concept of "English" as a monolithic, standardised language.

Like French...

Z95 Rocks Paris! (actually heard on Paris, FR FM radio)

Re:"English"

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody throw me a frikkin' bone here..

Re:"English"

[prockcore]

Ah well, at least they didnt use the blink tag.

I prefer the bling tag, which causes words to become jewel encrusted.

Re:"English"

[warnerve]

absence of distinction

Reminds me of the Smurfs. Obligatory Family Guy quote...

Smurf 1: Yo, you have a good time last night?
Smurf 2: Smurftacular!
Smurf 1: Yeah I saw you leave with Smurfette.
Smurf 2: Oh man, as soon as we got out of the bar, she started smurfing me.
Smurf 1: Shut the smurf up!
Smurf 2: Yeah!
Smurf 1: Right in the smurfin' parking lot?
Smurf 2: Smurf yeah!
Smurf 1: Oh that is freakin' smurf.
Smurf 2: You smurf it.
Smurf 1: That is freakin' smurf
Smurf 2: Yeah...

Re:When are we getting machine code natural langua

[Anonymous Coward]

YAF,R?

lest we forget Microsoft's take on this

[drunken dash]

And let's not forget Microsoft's take on l33t sp34k =)

I disagree

[Jhon]

"English" Not Threatened By Webspeak

They obviously haven't IM'd my 16 year old niece. "OMG! LMAO!!! Every1 nos that! lol! ttfn! cya!"

Sadly, that is a direct cut-paste from my IM window this morning.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't read txt-msg.

You don't read what?

when someone can't be bothered to type "you are" instead of "u r"

And you couldn't type out "text message."???

Nice.

Re:I disagree

[danila]

Whether gaming or chatting on AIM (or even email), I refuse to converse with people who can't make an effort to speak properly.

Wlcum 2 my fos. Strng to c such aversn 2 leetspk frm an elitist such as urself. lol!!!!one

I should not have to read your sentences three or four times to figure out what you're saying, just because you're too lazy to write propertly.

We shdnt waste time 'n b-w just 'caus ur too slow-witted. !!!! lol1!11!!!

Takes more time, too.

We waste time riting lik that, u waste som time ridin it. k?! OMFG!!!!12eleventy-one!!!1111!!!

It's not an elitist thing, either.

U sayng that dsnt make it so. Dont play gamez, dont use AIM. Dont force ur "proper" Eng on us. k? lol!!!!!omfglolbbq!!!!one!tanstaafl!!!!!!! wow!!!!!!!11!!! cya!!!!!!!!!!hth!

Not to Mention

[cinnamon colbert]

All those horrid things those nasty morse code people do ...

Well Microsoft is pretty worried

[oskard]

Just look at how they're taking control of the situation http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/ kidtalk.mspx

Hmmmm...

[Seoulstriker]

That is, encoding English like we encode with a compiler?

OMFG. Liek nevar, j00 n00b. lololol. j/k.

WTF

[mrtroy]

1999. ROFL.

2000. 4LL j00r n3tsp34k is w34k

2001. eye r owns0r joo all!

Then we all realized it was easier to communicate with normal english, and having both hands on the keyboard is a huge factor ;)

Re:WTF

[rowanxmas]

So many of us play World of Warcraft these days, needless to say, where your primary communication is through the chat window. In my guild we have members ranging from 16-40+. The only young ones who are able to stay in the guild succesfully are those who can write using "normal" english.

If they don't, we mock them, example:
young'en: can neone help me?
olde 'en: I don't know, "Neone" does not seem to be on right now.
young'en: what?
olde 'en: There is no player named "Neone" in our guild.
young'en: no, i mean i want ANYONE to help me!
olde 'en: oh! you should have said so in the first place.
(I make an alt named "Neone" )
Neone: I can help you! But I am only a level 1 druid...

And so we teach and encourage proper written communication.

|\|eTZP3@K

[bcmm]

I DON7 re411Y 7]-[|]\[C t]-[at d4 IntERN3t ]-[aZ h4d 4 6r34T YmpakT 0N ZPElLI]\[g @nd 1Yt3R4kY. i m3a|\|, I DOn7 e\/EN Uz3 n3Tspe@c, ! JU57 5P3Ll T]-[1NGz ]\[0Rm@1ly 0gnLi|\|3.

Re:|\|eTZP3@K

[AntEater]

Wow! You managed to post with netspeak and produce valid Perl code all in the same posting.

I'll bet

[2names]

he's not referring to the version of English that allows the speaker to end a sentence with "to."

Or IS he?!?!?!

Yes.

[2names]

Misplaced quotation marks, misplaced commas, the whole "your you're" problem, the "there their they're" fiasco...these are all huge problems on which we must focus our efforts.

Now, get you're ass back to work. We don't, want to piss you're boss off their do, we now?

The fears of an English Major...

[doublem]

Why am I filled with a nameless dread as I open this discussion? Why do I fear what I shall find?

I fear I shall see a plethora of posts, all alike in their incoherent use of obscure, incomprehensible acronyms and abbreviations, intelligible only to residents of the deepest rings of the Internet's darkest places.

I fear that, upon reading the content contained herein, I hall be inundated with the text chat of the Deep Old Ones.

I fear such things, and what they portend for the future of language.

If you don't know NetSpeak...

[antdude]

... let The English-to-12-Year-Old-AOLer Translator do it for you.

Source. ;)

0110100001101001

[i41Overlord]

01001001001000000111010001101000011010010110111001 10101100100000011010010111010000100111011100110010 00000110011001100001011100110110100001101001011011 11011011100110000101100010011011000110010100100000 01110100011011110010000001110100011000010110110001 10101100100000011011000110100101101011011001010010 00000111010001101000011010010111001100101110001000 00010101110110100001100101011011100010000001001001 00100000011011110111000001100101011011100010000001 10110101111001001000000110110101101111011101010111 01000110100000101100001000000100100100100000011100 11011011110111010101101110011001000010000001101100 01101001011010110110010100100000011000010010000001 10110101101111011001000110010101101101001011100010 00000101010001101000011001010010000001101101011011 11011100110111010000100000011010010110111001110100 01100101011100100110010101110011011101000110100101 10111001100111001000000111000001100001011100100111 01000010000001101111011001100010000001110100011010 00011001010010000001100011011011110110111001110110 01100101011100100111001101100001011101000110100101 10111101101110001000000110100101110011001000000111 01000110100001100101001000000110100001100001011011 10011001000111001101101000011000010110101101100101 00101110

Re:0110100001101001

[StalinsNotDead]

01011001011011110111010100100000011011100110010101 10010101100100001000000111000001110011011110010110 00110110100001101001011000010111010001110010011010 01011000110010000001101000011001010110110001110000 00101110

Re:0110100001101001

[Kippesoep]

How'd you get that past the lameness filter?

Re:0110100001101001

[Anonymous Coward]

01010111011010000110000101110100001000000110000101 10111000100000011000010111011101100110011101010110 11000010000001101110011010010110011101101000011101 00011011010110000101110010011001010010000100100000 01001111011011100110010101110011001000000110000101 10111001100100001000000111101001100101011100100110 11110110010101110011001000000110010101110110011001 01011100100111100101110111011010000110010101110010 01100101001011100010111000101110001011100110000101 10111001100100001000000100100100100000011101000110 10000110100101101110011010110010000001001001001000 00011100110110000101110111001000000110000100100000 011120100011101110110111100100001

Re:0110100001101001

[WasteOfAmmo]

01010111011010000110000101110100001000000110100101 11001100100000011011010110111101110011011101000010 00000110011001110101011011100110111001111001001000 00011000010110001001101111011101010111010000100000 01110100011010000110100101110011001000000110100101 11001100100000011011100110111101110111001000000110 10000110000101101100011001100010000001101111011001 10001000000111010001101000011001010010000001100010 01101001011011100110000101110010011110010010000001 10001101101111011011100111011001100101011100100111 00110110100101101111011011100010000001110011011010 01011101000110010101110011001000000010100001101001 01101110011000110110110001110101011001000110100101 10111001100111001000000111010001101000011001010010 00000111010001101111011100000010000001110010011000 01011011100110101101100101011001000010000001100111 01101111011011110110011101101100011001010010000001 11001001100101011100110111010101101100011101000010 10010010000001101001011100110010000000101111001011 10001001110110010101100100001011100010000000100000 01010111011001010010000001100001011100100110010100 10000001100111011001010110010101101011011100110010 00000110000101110010011001010010000001110111011001 010010000001101110011011110111010000100001
--
for some reason "preview" didn't help catch my spelling/grammar mistakes this time?

Re:I say this to the Linguistical GateKeepers

[superstick58]

I don't get it. President or precedent?

Re:hi

[Storlek]

I think it's fashionable to talk like this. When I open my mouth, I sound like a modem. The most interesting part of the conversation is the handshake.

Quite true.

management speak

[buhatkj]

i'd be more worried about the detriments to the language from "management-speak". adjectives that become verbs, nouns that become verbs, nouns that become adjectives...just general abuse ofcertain over-complex synonyms for simple ideas... now that is somthing to worry about. now lets dialog about how we need to form a new paradigm to prevent us from becoming zombiefied and dropping our goals. results are the key!! *shiver*

Re:management speak

[stud9920]

adjectives that become verbs, nouns that become verbs, nouns that become adjectives.

you can claim that to bad parenting

Re:spelling

[fraggirl13]

I like my women like I like my coffee... large, black and strong.

I thought you liked your coffee cold and bitter?

Yeah, yeah, I know, Offtopic.

Recalls a witticism:

[smittyoneeach]

If a male sheep is a ram,
and a wild horse is an ass,
Why is a ram in the ass a goose?
The question is all the more compelling during tax season.

Re:We'll wish for netspeak when we're old...

[CODiNE]

the variant where vowels are always lowercase and consants uppercase (or the other way around) is pretty much gone now

Alive and well, you insensitive clod!

Famous quote

[Viadd]

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary.

--James Nicoll

Re:can go both ways

[xsbellx]

Reminds me something I found very humourous.

I work for a rather large technology company and about two years ago, Blackberries became quite popular amongst the managment gang. During a rather prolonged conference call discussing some technical "challenges", one of the previously mentioned management types joined the call. The question was then raised about client notification. The PHB then promptly responded "Yes they are aware, we have been Rimming each other all weekend".

Kind of casts a new light on "customer service".

Re:When are we getting machine code natural langua

[Anonymous Coward]

AYRTS, IA?

e45y!

[prezninja]

1 d15tr4c73d 1t w17h th1s!

*runs*

010001110100111100100000010010010011010000110001 01 00111101010110010001010101001001001100010011110101 00100100010000100001001000000010000001001001001001 11010101100100010100100000010001110100111101010100 00100000010101000100100001000101001000000100011001 00100101001100010101000100010101010010001000010010 00000010000001010011010000110100111101010010010001 01001000000100000100100000001010110011010100100000 01000110010101010100111001001110010110010010000001 00011001001111010100100010000001010100010010000100 01010010000001010010010001010101001101010100001000 00010011110100011000100000010101010101001100100001

*trips*

Future Studies

[SmartSsa]

It'll be handy in 50000 years when other people run out of things to study. They'll be able to study the dead language of English and how it mutated into WTFOMFGLOLOLkthxBBQ!

damn you kids!

[robochan]

g3t 0ff |\/|y l4\/\/n!!!~!!111oneone!!tilde!!!!omgwtfbbq!!

Re:When are we getting machine code natural langua

[Just Some Guy]

Having a wife who's mother tongue is Russian

So you really tried it, huh? How's that working out for you? Was the postage expensive?