How the Internet Is Changing Language

Ant writes "BBC News reports on how the internet is changing language. What was once understandable only to the tech savvy has become common. From the article: 'To Google' has become a universally understood verb and many countries are developing their own Internet slang. But is the Web changing language and is everyone up to speed?'"

Comments

No.

[JanneM]

"[...] is everyone up to speed?"

No. That's the whole point of slang - you use it to show that you belong in a specific subgroup. If everyone is "up to speed" on some slang it no longer works as slang. Everyone who wants to show subgroup membership (and that's everybody, pretty much) will start using other new words and expressions instead.

Re:No.

[JanneM]

"And on a quite global scale, enabling unprecended level of direct interboundary (interocean even) communication"

Not as much as many native English speakers seem to want to think. Most people here in Japan, including academics and other well-educated professionals, never visit non-Japanese language websites - or if they do (some social websites or similar), only the subset that is in Japanese. And this is generally true even when their English proficiency is quite good. I saw similar behavior (though to a lesser extent) in my native Sweden some years ago.

"Language globalization" or not, the vast majority of people around the world are most comfortable communicating in their own language, with people largely sharing their own culture. We don't really have one internet as much as a number of separate, semi-permeable internets, each with their own language, culture, trends and memes but with some high-profile stuff "leaking" between them. We may superficially seem as we're sharing the same online culture, but for every runaway meme shared by the world, you have tens, hundreds that never go beyond the particular internet where it was born.

Slashdot

[matt007]

back in time : Slashdot = News for nerds, stuff that matters.
now : Slashdot = Useless stuff, badly reported, just to get clicks.

Keyboards

[txoof]

Not only has the internet changed the way some people speek, but just the common use of keyboards without the intervention of editing or editors (or thinking, sometimes) has contributed to the way we speak online, and occasionally in real life. A few examples that pop to mind are "borken," a simple transposition of the "r" and "o" in broken-- and of course thanks to the Swedish Chef. That transposition also gave us the incredibly useful word "bork" as well. The transposition "teh" has also crept into usage, usually to show some sort of derision or sarcasm.

What other transpositions or artifacts of keyboard usage can /. come up with?

Re:Keyboards

[RulerOf]

@martin-boundary naw dude. it's a gazillion times moar convenient to click thru a gazillion pages to read the whole conversation rather than seeing a threaded view. And the character limit is good cau

So many complaints

[slackarse]

So many complaints about /. articles.

So why do you people come back ... and waste time reading ... then wasting more time commenting?