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"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"!"
"blog" is a netspeak, and now it's already commonly accepted as an english word.
"E-mail" used to be a technical term, and now can be written as plain english in "email".
"Text" was never a verb until SMS.
To be more specific:
. html
55% body posture and gestures
38% tone of your voice
7% words
Reference:
http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/ip860710
Which unfortunately cause french to be brain-damaged when it comes to technology or any field that moves relatively fast.
If french do have a word for things that are computer related for instance, it's likely to be akward or unusable (like the absence of distinction between download and upload).
And French is my native language.
Slashdot anagrams to "Sad Sloth"
I have made the mistake of using cum in my postings on slashdot, which always seems to delight and amuse the sixth-grade-male mentality prevalent.
For those who are ignunt: It is precisely the latin conjuction meaning "with", as in: "I think this new photocopier-cum-papershredder is a disaster waiting to happen." Think of the word "cumulative"
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
Actually, the problem is not ending a sentence with a preposition, but including a preposition without an object: here and here.
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Crudely Drawn Games
Some of us old timers still prefer to comprehend what we're reading.
Even Slashdot has its own "Slashspeak" (Sorry, couldn't resist the quotations marks, as per some of the previous threads). Some has taken me a while to figure out. Some I still haven't figured out. There should be a FAQ page with some of the frequently used Slashspeak, IMHO.
Here some of the few I've managed to figure out on my own.
IANAL = I am not a lawyer (with lawyer sometimes replaced with astronomer, physicist, etc)
WRT = with regard to
AFAIK = as far as I know
RTFA = read the f***ing article; also shortened to TFA or just FA - see parent post for FTFA, another variation - substitutes "from" for "read"
WTF= what the f*** usually followed by lots of ?'s and !'s
GP = grandparent, or grandparent post, the parent before the previous (parent) post
I still haven't figured out what the hell IIRC means, though.
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
IIRC, it expands out to "if I recall correctly"
I read this a while ago. I found a pdf of the New York Times article here http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/docs/nytimes/2004-12-0 7_nytimes_poor_english.pdf .
Cogent point:
Businesses are having to send people back to school to learn how to write. Many cannot write coherent sentences or paragraphs.
Just try to deal with requirements when not only do they not have a clue, but can't even write their non-clue.
You have to remember that English has a very strong dynamics, with some syllables being markedly stressed and others conversely weak. "Grammar" has a stress on the first syllable, making the first vowel sound very distinctly, while the second vowel ends up being pronounced with the generic weak vowel sound, or "schwa". So there is actually no distinction between the pronunciations of "grammar" and "grammer".
Gravitation is a theory, not a fact.
(In fact I type just about as fast as I can think of the words anyway - so typing any faster would just be a waste)
Do some googling for rate of speech, thinking, listening etc and add the keyword wpm. You'll be shocked to find numerous claims that most people think in the 500-800 WPM range internally.
In fact, while the 'normal' delivery speed is 125-150 WPM, most speakers are easily capable of talking at 300 WPM, especially if they're excited about the topic. In your google searching (see previous paragraph), you'll find plenty of links suggesting that people (educators/salesmen) should talk at 200 WPM to keep the attention of their listeners.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I am a Finn, and I'd say that English is definitely an easy language to learn and master. Finnish, for example, is much more difficult to learn, but it is also much more "powerful" language in terms of versatility in expressing things.
Also other languages like Russian and Swedish seem more difficult to learn than English.
Of course it helps learning a lot that you actually NEED the language in everyday life, which is the case with English. Major part of TV-programming is in English, although subtitled. Surfing the net and using a computer would be a pain in the ass without the knowledge of English.
So English definitely has many advantages over other languages, which make it easier to learn. But it is also quite an easy language initially.
Just like Shorthand did... Oh wait nevermind that didn't destroy the language. I say we don't call these people "purists". The word twit comes to mind as a better description. If people expected me to use proper English in a chat room then it would be time for me to disconnect. Its web chatter folks not Shakespear for god's sake. Imagine playing Counter Strike and not using webspeak. You would get shot in the head before you finished typing "Why that was a very humorous comment you made" instead of just LOL!
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
How about this train wreck:
"ough" is pronounced at least 6 different ways in English:
"uff" as in "tough" or "rough"
"ow" as in "bough"
"oo" as in "through"
"o" as in "though" (long 'o')
"aw" as in "thought"
"off" as in "trough"
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
"after all you have minimum, maximum, and then... "
Medium.