From: Gryphin (gryphin_@swbell.net)
Date: Mon Jul 31 2000 - 09:52:54 MDT
At 10:51 PM 7/30/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>>From: "Gina Miller" <nanogirl@halcyon.com>
>>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>>To: <extropians@extropy.org>
>>Subject: Re: Hi-Low, or Art for Money (Was) Steven King's The Plant
>>Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 22:13:11 -0700
>>
>>Actually I had an advanced class specifically on the study of Shakespeare
>>and his works when I was in high school. My teacher explained that his
>>written diction was embellished, and that common folk were not speaking so
>>eloquently. (thee and thou art etc.) I don't know how valid that is, but I
>>had asked her about it, and that was her answer.
>>Gina
>>
>>Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
>> > But Spike EVERYBODY talked like that back then, forsooth. Its a pretty
>>clear
>> > progression from Chaucer to Shakespeare to the present day that the
>>grammar of
>> > the english language is devolving to some point in the future of pure
>>gutteral.
>In case you've never experienced this, there are chat rooms in which the
>resemblance to standard English is rather tenuous. The participants,
>usually high-school kids or younger, but obviously international in
>background, have evolved their own semi-phonetic Englich derivative in
>which entire phrases are often condensed into a single word that more or
>less phonetically sounds like the original English - very much like the
>taxi-drivers language in Stephenson's Snow Crash.
I would definitely have to agree with this. I hang out in various IRC
channels for various things, and it has a "net language" all it's own.
90% of the unusual words come from an inside joke somewhere, and have taken
on a new meaning. Like who would say "w00t!" in real life? but in IRC, I
see it very commonly as a replacement for "yeah!" or "woohoo!".(Came from a
joke about tourette's syndrome) Same thing with all the acronyms, the
language has changed itself to fit it's environment of having to be able to
communicate faster, since it is a real-time chat. Slow typers/readers often
get left behind in the conversation in a busy room. And to people who are
unfamilar with the environment, it is totally foreign. I realized this when
my brother was over at my house, and was looking at my computer that I had
left an IRC client running on, and he asked me what I had considered to be
everyday terms were.
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