Internet Speech

[xm.bretton]

Originally posted by Geoff332@09-24-2003 01:02 AM Shouldn't that be "I do not think" Language is, and always has been a fluid thing. The media of communication effects langauge. and that is perfectly normal.

you are correct.

if it occurs again, please do not refrain from letting me know.

[Sodfather]

Originally posted by Fallen Angel@09-22-2003 06:32 AM George Orwells book 1984, is recomended as it provides a pretty good insight into terms such as newspeak, which is what we are being directed to.

Way off! There's a huge difference between cleaning out all words that allow people to actually think independently and syncopating a few words for laziness' sake. This shortened way of speaking is essentially the same as saying laser instead of light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation - acronyms.

But if you accept that that statement was off, and that these acronyms aren't really alternating a person's ability ot think as was the case with 1984's Newspeak, the way of typing is very annoying. It shows complete disregard for the laws of English and of all other languages that people in the past have laboured to "perfect."

By the way, I find it very amusing that xm.bretton trashes people who disregard correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar when they're online and then goes and makes some of those mistakes himself! :D

P.S. In my school my English teacher recently received a paper that had "gonna" instead of "going to" in it. :o Can you believe that shit? Thank God it wasn't in our class; it was in regular, non-accelerated English. :P

[Downwiththestereotype]

Originally posted by xm.brendan@09-22-2003 03:24 AM is it me, or has our generation (me being 18) gotten so consumed by instant messaging that we honestly could not type a coherent essay without 'autocorrect' on mircosoft word? i admit, i sometimse use shorthand in an attempt to save time, but many people i know write entire sentences without using a single actual word. it's disgusting. a pet peeve of mine is when people write your when they mean you're. i cannot STAND that. the worst part of it is, they do not know they're making a mistake. it drives me crazy. your thoughts?

A personal hatred of mine is the acronyme LOL.
GRRR!

[RebelWithanAK]

Originally posted by Geoff332@09-24-2003 01:02 AM Shouldn't that be "I do not think" Language is, and always has been a fluid thing. The media of communication effects langauge. and that is perfectly normal.

Okay, okay, I grant you that, as I search for a kleenex (product placement) while I punch in (slang) my PIN (abbr.) at the ATM (abbr.) near the GWB (abbr.) terminal... but at least most of it doesn't really last.

[Geoff332]

No, most of it doesn't last. But the little bits of it that do are what change language.

Personally, I don't like or use 'chatspeak' myself (or at least very rarely). But I do see that it's a normal part of the development of the English language within a new medium.

[As'rek]

I myself, barely use the "newspeak", but the younger generation isn't really being taught the English language to a desirable amount. I'm in high school right now, and in "English", we learn pretty much nothing about the English language. If I use a word longer then 3 syllables at school, I usually have to use some more simple terms so it doesn't take them a minute or two to understand what I'm saying.

[dannyp]

Uh, I'm going to enter a new perspective here. Slang. What is slang? its words used to shorten words to convey language. Whats the difference between 'Slang' and 'Language'? Slang is very dynamic and doesn't stick because of its lack of specificity or solidity. Whereas language is only slightly dynamic some words get incorperated to actual language if it is around long enough, alternatively it is also weeded out if it hasn't been used for long enough.
For example one person mentioned Chauser, who here speaks like chaucer wrote? Not I. But the language is still recognizable and derivative of words we say today.

An example this week in english class was brought up about slang words. It was the brought to the attention of the class that the slang word 'f*ck' it is about ready to be taken out of our slang because of its overuse and overgeneralized meaning, it can be used in any form of language: verb, adjective, noun, etc. Yeah you've probably all heard the song. :p At any rate some day f*ck won't be the vulgar word that it has been for recent years. Say you said f*ck in another [primarily english] speaking country, it won't be nearly as vulgar as some of the words they think are vulgar.

So instead of street talk our generation has introduced the combination of street talk and shorthand, this way we can shorten the length of typing things instead of saving energy to say long words.

This in no way is the same as writing a paper, of course in our minds it is similar because we are doing the same physical act [ typing ] where before, speaking and writing were much more seperate. For example even if you wrote a letter in the past you still used a determined writing format, and if you didn't there was no known shorthand that was farily universal to be recognizable with the recipient, and so it was not effective to shorten. There was no form of realtime textual shorthand that is communicable between people. Obviously computers have changed that, and no I don't think we are more stupid because of this fact. I still try to stay with writing in english to convey my thoughts as precisely as I can [ at least with typed responses ]. But in realtime IM chat its pretty easy to lose yourself in brb, g2g, fu, cya, and what have you.

Hope that explaineid my little view.

[Fallen Angel]

I don't think saying fuck every second word sounds very good, I save it for frustration or joking around, but some people think for some silly reason they sound pretty cool repeating it a thousand times an hour, pretty boring actually.

[Section 8]

When I was in middle school & high school I thought I was the coolest cause I kept talkin about sex and sayin fuck. I eventually realized that saying fuck every second isn't cool, you just sounded like a dumass. I still say fuck, but I've cut down on the usage.

[dannyp]

that sort of behavior will just promote the longitude of the f words' reign.. lol

[greendeath]

wtf r u on?

u aint goin nowere

[Nexa]

A bit old... but fitting

NEW LANGUAGE = The EEC Modernizes English

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the"k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the
troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen ve vil tak over ze world!

[Aequo]

Seeing as how written language came after spoken language to begin with, the spelling has really been kind of arbitrary from the beginning. If someone uses internet spellings in a conversation, it just tells me that they (a) aren't a good typist and don't want to stumble over typing longer words or (b) want to save time.

[Sodfather]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Aequo,)
(a) aren't a good typist and don't want to stumble over typing longer words<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>
I'm leaning towards that explanation. Most of these idiots just can't tell the difference between "two," "too," and "to" so they use "2." It's disgusting.

[Impenitent]

and of course, only certain works of literature will be translated into lazy speak... the masses will be dumbed down even further... wittgenstein was correct: the limits of my langauge are the limits of my world... but that's fine, the sheep are easier to control that way...

[Sodfather]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Impenitent,)
wittgenstein was correct: the limits of my langauge are the limits of my world... but that's fine, the sheep are easier to control that way...<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>
Yeah, Orwell gives us a good dose of that thinking in 1984 as seen with the use of Newspeak. Newspeak was the gradual changing of the language and doing away with of words which could be used to imagine rebellion to put an end to rebellion altogether--it's hard for one to imagine something which cannot be expressed in language. And like you said, Impenitent, it gradually lowered the intelligence of the denizens.

Let's hope internet slang isn't that severe, though.

[Impenitent]

net slang, politically correct speech, ebonics, it all adds up...

[zkreso]

When language evolves, it gets simpler and simpler. A long time ago, the grammar was much more complex than it is now. There were a lot more different forms that we do not have now.

[Impenitent]

simpler and simpler, dumber and dumber... loosing meaning... evolution towards ignorance...

[Pooeypants]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (zkreso,)
When language evolves, it gets simpler and simpler. A long time ago, the grammar was much more complex than it is now. There were a lot more different forms that we do not have now.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>
So err, when humanity first developed languages...err judging by your logic they must've had an IQ of like 1000 to cope with the complexity...