Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

"English" Not Threatened By Webspeak

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the but-it-is-threatened-by-my-inability-to-discern-then-and-than dept.

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"!"

4 of 695 comments (clear)

  1. can go both ways by PureCreditor · · Score: 5, Informative

    "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.

  2. Re:"English" by Red+Alastor · · Score: 5, Informative

    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"
  3. Re:Young People, Take Note by jangobongo · · Score: 3, Informative


    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
  4. Re:Young People, Take Note by T-Ranger · · Score: 3, Informative

    IIRC, it expands out to "if I recall correctly"