Rob’s Megaphone

1 | Erik Johnels

May 9th, 2008 at 9:41 am

INteresting article.
I don’t think that i have ever used Online slang in oral communication except for when I’m making a point about it.

However common online, the real beneficial use of many of these are in short messaging, first cellphones and now short message sites like Twitter are seeing it increasing heavy.

I think that the language as such is going to change to adapt to it. 50 years ago. When someone said Ram, they meant a male goat, today, almost no one will make that association unless the speaker is dressed in camouflage and sporting a gun.

Most of these abbreviations will probably never make it into mainstream conversations because they depict non verbal communication. Smileys, LOL’s and all the other things that come across naturally in face to face or phone conversations.

I for one think that its use will become more widespread because of its connection to the text message. Something that i feel has become a norm of interpersonal communication.

2 | Jon

May 9th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

I hate all that slang. It really annoys me when I receive a text message filled with it. Most times I don’t even read it, just hit the delete button. If it’s that important whoever sent it can phone me, or send me a message is some sort of cohesive English.

3 | Charles

May 9th, 2008 at 5:45 pm

I agree with Jon, it’s ridiculous and I don’t see it expanding beyond short messages that pretty much have to be abbreviated in such a way.

4 | Teacher

May 20th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

I heard my 16-yr-old niece use “owned”, as in “He really got owned”. Her grandparents were present and thankfully didn’t understand–I forget now what the subject was under discussion–but the conversation quickly passed to less perilous regions.

5 | washwords

May 25th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

lol omg, i DO use this stuff all the time! not really. but yes, as a professional writer/editor, I do try to be careful with my email vocabulary, (not to mention my e.e. cummings-esque preference for a lack of capitalization). I agree with everything folks are saying about the sadness of this erosion of our language… but… I do think language is meant to evolve. Do I hope to see lol in “regular” writing – not unless it’s a novel about chat, but do I hope we can agree on the proper way to cite a Web site or e-mail (i.e., is it E Mail, email, e-mail, etc., etc.) sometime in the next few years. Likewise as far as “regular” text goes, well that’s changing too, isn’t it?

Just as folks are reading more blogs and texts than novels and newspapers (for better or worse, it’s happening), so too is what’s “normal – changing, again for good or bad.

Two other quick points:
1) I will say I started paying much closer attention to the way I use language online when the then 8-year-old son of a man I was seeing got an email address. Suddenly, I typed in complete sentences, with correct punctuation and capitalization. I guess if bad grammar was the worst a child saw online….

2) When I was dating and trying online dating sites, too many “alots” or similar grammar errors that aren’t just typos or emoticons and I was outtie. so to speak!

great post!