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

Not so much the internet as games

[MichaelSmith]

My eight year old son plays the usual games in the playground but I noticed that it is now possible to pause them. The way it works in you are running around playing Tag or something and somebody says Pause and everything stops. Its a bit like time out in basketball, but for me it is directly derived from the electronic games they play which generally have a Pause function.

Re:Can anyone be really up to date?

[rolfwind]

Just read the Lolcat Bible:
http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

You'll turn the tables and be confusing the kids in no time.

Re:To google..

[kumanopuusan]

In Japanese, verbs often end in ru. guguru (one transliteration of Google) ends in ru and it's used as a verb. With only a handful of exceptions, all Japanese verbs are regular, so once a new verb is coined all of its many forms are used more or less naturally.

From the verb stem (gugur-) one can derive all the other forms of the verb, including gugureba (if [one] googles), gugutta (googled), gugurimasu (google [polite]) and even gugurikata (googling technique), gugutteirassyaru (to google [exalted]), gugutteitadakereba (if [I] humbly receive the addressee's act of googling), guguritai ([I] want to google) and gugure (google [impolite imperative, similar to "Google it, motherfucker!"]).