[Flyboy]

Now I'm not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. You'll probably find at least one in this post. But for Christ's sake, at least I take the time to spell out entire words and piece together completed sentences.

I was browsing Myspace the other day (something I'm not particularly proud of) and was struct by the absolute disregard people have for syntax, vocabulary and all those good old-fashionned principles that we learned in second grade. What the hell is happening to the world when garbage like "PaRtAY! lol .. but u like my pic. still ?!?!?!? lol .. myspace pic. ?? Ugh! eww! lol ... well i will ttyl.. love ya .. " can pass for a conversation?

It's like the internet has developed its own language, catering to the increasingly low attention spans and general laziness/stupidity of its users. Is it really too much to ask that we write the way humans have written for hundreds of years? Or does this signal the end of language as we know it, replaced instead by smiley faces and heartless generic acronyms?

Maybe Orwell had it right years ago. The less words available, the less opportunity for unique individual thoughts.

This whole situation is doubleplus ungood, if you ask me.

[Crunchy in milk]

Putting to one side the 'errors' in your own post, if you look at the english language's evolution (or more correctly its cannabalism of many other languages over those hundreads of years) then you might get a little perspective.

Mobile phone txt messaging (sorry text messaging), myspace lingo and instant messaging jargon aren't anything new. Some terms from each will no doubt become common parlance in everyday use. That's what happens with language - especially the english language. Try to think of them as (regional) dialects.

If you're having trouble you might like to try this:

[MoriartyL]

Whenever I see this terrible phenomenon, I am reminded of the story of the Tower of Babel, in which the higher the tower went the less comprehensible people became.

[Giligan]

I don't mind that kind of crap, because it only smugly reminds me how much more intelligent I am than anyone who would use "words" like ROFL, TTYL, etc. etc.

[pinkgothic]

Oh, gee, thanks.

I use 'net acronyms, especially LOL or ROFL. It's grossly disheartening to see how people like you folks seem to equate it with low intelligence.

At the same time, there are other things in that very example given that make my blood boil - and shows a genuine lack of effort:

"PaRtAY! lol .. but u like my pic. still ?!?!?!? lol .. myspace pic. ?? Ugh! eww! lol ... well i will ttyl.. love ya .. "

.. instead of ...
?!?!?!? instead of ?!
Generally butchered capitalisation.
Generally butchered punctuation.
U and ya, which is 'shorthand' and not an acronym.

Yadda, yadda. The problem is not the acronyms (which have been picked out for the topic title and by comments thus far), though as with everything, there is such a thing as "too much", and thus, usually, I tend to cringe when I read "ttyl" because very, very often, it appears in combination with about two or three other acronyms... in the same sentence. So I've developed a bias against that particular acronym.

[Jeysie]

Acronyms aren't always a bad thing. In real-time chat, in particular, it's useful to use some acronyms that are generally well-known and abbreviate long phrases (like IIRC instead of "if I recall correctly" or AFAIK instead of "as far as I know", for instance.)

But I have to admit that in a *lot* of informal webspaces and chat logs, I see many people who abbreviate almost every word in a sentence. Furthermore they use IMHO (heh) silly abbreviations like "thx" instead of "thanks" or "u" instead of "you". 'Cause, you know, typing a whole extra two or three letters is just too hard. That's when it starts going from "useful" to "low intelligence-looking".

And, not to incur the wrath of the Pink, but I have to admit that even in the first situation above I'm not fond of "LOL" or "ROFL". Maybe it's just major overuse (and subsequent internal association with Net Teenybopper due to fanfic sites and the like), but they do make me cringe. I only use them when I'm being ironic and/or facetious.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[undeaf]

Partay isn't really internet language, I've heard it pronounced like that.

I never liked "lol", I think onomonopea for laughing and giggling would be better. Problem is, I don't think onomonopea for light laughter is actually possible in english. ROFL and LMAO I find okay, if you're saying you're laughing intensely, you might as well say so in a way that gets the point across.

If people annoy you by using lots of abbreviations, you can annoy them back by talking like jeffk. Or by using obscenely large amounts of image macros.

[Jeysie]

"Hee", "Hee, hee", "Hah", "Haha", etc. all work fine. "/me chuckles", "/me snickers" and "/me giggles" also work fine.

For heavy laughter, there's a "XD" smiley, or "Can't type... laughing..." or "Hee, my sides hurt..." or (my personal favorite) "/me dies laughing" or "/me falls on the floor/out of my chair", etc, etc.

I also knew one fellow who used to type random letters for a while when laughing hard... the intended implication being that his fingers were getting tangled while trying to type while laughing.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by pinkgothic

Oh, gee, thanks.

I use 'net acronyms, especially LOL or ROFL. It's grossly disheartening to see how people like you folks seem to equate it with low intelligence.

At the same time, there are other things in that very example given that make my blood boil - and shows a genuine lack of effort:



.. instead of ...
?!?!?!? instead of ?!
Generally butchered capitalisation.
Generally butchered punctuation.
U and ya, which is 'shorthand' and not an acronym.

Yadda, yadda. The problem is not the acronyms (which have been picked out for the topic title and by comments thus far), though as with everything, there is such a thing as "too much", and thus, usually, I tend to cringe when I read "ttyl" because very, very often, it appears in combination with about two or three other acronyms... in the same sentence. So I've developed a bias against that particular acronym.

I agree entirely. That said, I am annoyed by people that overuse "lol" (as in using it as a default response to anything), though I'm not much better (I tend to type "heh" a lot).

Oh, and I always type out text messages in full and with correct punctuation. That is the sign of the person with higher intelligence .

[Giligan]

Text messages are crap.

[RLacey]

I hate text messages. Mobile phones are for making telephone calls.

Sadly, most of my friends seem to prefer SMS communication to emails .

[Giligan]

Anything important should go through a telegram line or envelope.

[Melanie68]

I don't mind the acronyms but like Jeysie said, typing u instead of you e.g. annoys me. I don't think it's a sign of low intelligence but reflects the fast paced (I don't know if that's quite the right thing) aspect of today. Why bother typing out the entire word when one letter will do. It just appears lazy. Some of that text speak though seems like it would be harder to type out with the varied capitalization and symbols. It's just funky to me.

[Giligan]

Perhaps, but animate this picture in your mind's eye: You have a high-intelligence professor. You also have a kid of considerably less gray matter. Which one of these is going to use said abbreviations?

[RLacey]

The proffesor [sic], if he's that incapable of spelling his own title .

[Jeysie]

I've had people try to sell me the "it's faster" or "too much effort" line. Which to me makes no sense, since any time you save composing the message, you lose in interpreting the message (at least, I certainly find it slower picking my way through excessive abbreviations and netspeak...), but, you know.

Now, I can understand using lots of abbreviations with SMS alone, since, in my (admittedly) limited knowledge anyway, you tend to get charged per letter/line or otherwise have space limits.

Of course, why anyone would use SMS to begin with when there's other methods that fulfill the same function far more effectively, I don't know, but most trendy stuff eludes me anyway. And that still doesn't excuse using excessive quantities of abbrevations/netspeak anywhere else.

Something I've always wanted to ask... do native speakers of non-English languages tend to be just as cavalier with their spelling/grammar/etc. in their native language, or is it mainly an English phenomenon?

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Giligan]

^^ I've edited that.

[Jelena]

I've always wondered what ROFL stands for.

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by Giligan

^^ I've edited that.

The last time I checked, it was spelt "professor" .

[Giligan]

All right, it's fixed. Bugger off.