Personally I've never liked colloquialisms, and speed for me should never be bought at the expense of clarity or elegance of expression.

Many people abbreviate words and fail to proof-read their posts because they are worried that somebody else will say what they mean to before they have finished typing, but I can't see why it should matter who makes a point as long as it is made: we are not here to compete in cleverness. If someone does happen to get in first the post can be edited to avoid any duplication, and dashing them off as quickly as possible just leads to a slapdash argument that makes it appear that its author couldn't be bothered to write it out properly. Readers will skim past such a post in search of something more thoughtful.

There's also the matter of the audience: anyone with an internet connection can read what is posted here, so it surprises and saddens me that some people seem to take no pride at all in what they publish. 'Kind of' (abbreviated to 'kinda' above, in order to save typing a mere two characters) is a familiar term, the use of which is discouraged in serious writing in favour of 'somewhat' or 'rather'. The chat-room acronym 'lol' (which I thought was a mis-typing of 'loll' when first I saw it) doesn't belong at all in a discussion forum, where there is sufficient time to type "That had me laughing out loud" or words to that effect. As for the hideous 'j/k', if you have chosen your words properly anyone with a reasonable level of intelligence should be able to tell whether or not you are joking without being told. With practice it becomes easy to infuse a jocular tone into a piece of writing without the use of any decoration or embellishment at all, which makes it much more enjoyable to read. Surely we all want people to enjoy reading what we post.

[ May 14, 2003: Message edited by: The Squatter of Amon Rûdh ]

I basically agree with what the Squatter wrote, though I have not quite gotten out of the habit of using 'lol'. There is, however, one acronym that is used around the site: FYI for for your information. I haven't been able to find any others, though.

~Menelien

I shudder every time the term 'lol' is used. Even in chat I try not to use it (not that many things are funny enough to get me laughing out loud). I endeavour to use proper English in my typing and when other people do not I can be quite annoyed by it. Disregarding entirely that some particularly badly written posts can take me twice as long to read as I would've taken were it written properly.

Hmm. Mea Culpa - I do post things like btw (by the way) and IRL (in real life). And, very sparingly, rofl. But never lol.
Incidently, isn't txtspk just a sign that you have a really cheap phone? The ones I've had have always had predictive texting, so no need for all these tiresome abbreviations...

I know that my spelling is off most of the time but I am really bad at it. Sometimes I stump the computer. But for those who read my posts you have to understand that I spell out how the words sound. Sometimes that does not work. I am not dyslexic as far as I know, but I think that in my Organizationally challenged life bad spelling is part of that. Or maybe I have the dyslexia that many artists do, I look for the shape in words, maybe not. I also think of the letters that make the sounds of the words or possible letters and therefore misspell a lot of things. Of course it may be the chemicals that I am exposed to in the art department. I do a lot of the spell checks in word, and my last RP I had my friend look over for me. Um by the way what does BTW mean? I have known English all my life but I still have a hard time with the abbreviations and the acronyms. But I live in a state with two languages that are spoken all the time, Spanish and English. I can figure out what the Spanish speakers are saying, to a point I get the gist. I cannot learn it to save my life; I tried once. But anyway, I also have a hard time saying a lot of words too in my own language. So for most of you who know more than one language I tip my hat to you. The RPGs have helped much more than I expected, because I am now beginning to catch my mistakes. Of course this may be due to my English instructor and that evil research paper. Anyway now that you are board to death I shall stop!

IRL? I never even knew about that one. And I never use any except for "lol", so at least it's sort of excusable, I think.

~Menelien

Like I said, it's no biggie, just PM the person & point out the need to use proper grammer/puctuation/etc. Plain & simple... [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

Birdland: theonering.net is where I found it! It is the source of any information that I cannot find here!

Thanks Yavanna228! That was a good article too!

Annalaliath - I see little to complain of concerning your spelling. And there is nothing wrong with proofreading your posts multiple times. Before we had the preview function, I would go back and edit 2-3 times, deleting the "edit" note each time so it didn't show up over and over at the end of my post.

However; I must gently point out that part of proper grammar is knowing how to break down your entry into paragraph form. These old eyes of mine have trouble following your points when they are strung together into one long, unbroken block of type. It looks better on the page, as well. (Which the eye of an artist should appreciate.)

Bee-Dubya made a very good point when he stated that the best way to honor our favorite writer is to appreciate and practice the art of the written word.

Of course, I just negated everything that I have said by using "Bee-Dubya". [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

An interesting point: I also knew how to speak and write before the Downs (though shouldn't we be saying The Barrow Downs?). However, I never went to that place called school. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] (Pardon me whilst I assume an air of irritating smugness.)

This may be an irrelevent tangent, but it is interesting to take into account that the modern English we speak is comprised of many debasements (so to speak) of older, more formal speech. You pick up any novel from centuries gone by, and the text is bound to be more verbose and erudite than 90% of the novels today. Granted, I've not studied etymology to a great extent, but I have noticed what seems like a downward trend in language. Besides a general, overall simplification and resortment to smaller words, many new words that make it into our accepted speech and writing are acronyms such as "snafu" and "radar". So it doesn't surprise me in the least that acronyms such as "Lol", "Rofl", "IMO (or) IMHO", "BTW" et cetera, have caught on so.

I don't mean to say that this trend is not lamentable, but it seems very much like a part of human nature which is likely impossible to change. So those of us who value our rules of spelling, grammar, and linguistic etiquette, can't really stop others from using and abusing it the way they see fit. We can make a few converts, but they'll always outnumber us, it seems. I probably make my own point by using contractions, and modern slang which we've ceased to think of as slang anymore. Send me back in time, and they'd probably be horrified by my uncouth speech.

So one day... People in the future will be lamenting the fact that yngstrs dont jst stck 2 pln 'glsh ne mor.

Pardon me if my knells of doom boom a little too loud for you. I seem to have had a sudden attack of cynicism.

On the other hand, one could go the other way, and say that the alternitive to the constant warping of our language, is to have it stagnate and die. I hear all the time that Latin is a dead language. Perhaps these debasements, colloquialisms, acronyms, and such, keep our speech alive and healthy, in a twisted sort of backward logic.

Eh... It's far too late to start debating with myself, so I'll quit now and leave you to ponder the bizarrerie that is human communication.

I was really trying, but have to go off topic for a moment: What on earth is rofl? I know the others, but not that! I do understand why people use chat-speak, sometimes I'm tempted! Just to get on with it, and that's not because I'm worried about people posting the same, just because I have to cram a lot of Barrowdowns into 40 minutes internet per day!

ROFL is an abbreviation of "[R]olling [O]n the [F]loor, [L]aughing." It is often used to denote a very high level of amusement, since laughing out loud is used so much that it has lost its real meaning.

"Lol" simply denotes amusement, even slight amusement, or indicates that something said was not meant to be taken seriously. I'm afraid I am quite guilty of this in the chatroom, but do not use "lol" or other chat terms on the forum if I can help it.

I would also like to add that it is not just the forum or other internet venues that are influenced by chatspeak. I am a teaching assistant at an Ivy League university, and I have seen chatspeak creep into formal academic papers more and more often in my three years here. Also rampant is the use of the smiley within an academic paper to indicate that something is an exaggeration or otherwise lighthearted. I see this as a much more significant problem than its use in the forum. Yes, language must be vital and reflect culture, but educated people should be able to use language appropriate to the education culture. I think it is far more excusable on an internet forum than it is in an end of term essay.

[ May 15, 2003: Message edited by: The X Phial ]

What? *stops complaining about BDers (almost)* People use chatese in papers written at the university? Even my SMS-generation 10th grade classmates don't do that! I wouldn't have been able to do that, there'd be some kind of mental block against it.

I am thoroughly horrified with myself as I read this thread. I despise chat language as a rule, and make a valiant attempt to even keep it out of my chat, but as XPhial has just pointed out, it's creeping into my other writing as well. This is enough to make me plan out my New Year's Resolution in advance: No more "lol".

And as XPhial also pointed out, it is extremely tempting to use smileys in everyday writing. I did, I admit, use one in a paper on one occasion. And I've been tempted to otherwise. It's like a verbal tic in typing.

They say that you know a language well when you think in it. I would say its not much of a leap to say that a phrase or even a smiley has become part of the language when the first thing one thinks of as a response is a smiley, and the second is: "How I wish it was appropriate to use a smiley here!"

Argh... this is good for me, I certainly want to sound like the educated person I'll be when I finish my education! Thanks all.

Sophia

Sorry of my ignorance, but, uh… what exactly is “IMHO”? If somebody already said, I am extremely sorry, but my memory seems to be going and gone while I am barely in my teens [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

~Menelien

In My Humble Opinion - IMHO

While I am no fan of chatspeak and have hardly ever used it (I have never even sent a text message), I do think that 'smileys' are useful in a forum such as this, appropriately used. Since it is a discussion atmosphere, they make up for the facial expressions and tones of voice that would otherwise feature in a discussion.

Of course, I agree that they have no place in academic papers, or any other formal piece of writing for that matter.

I actually have no problem with the use of smileys in forum posts either. I use them all the time in chat, as well. The temptation to pepper all of one's writing with them, however, is dangerous. Thankfully I have never been tempted to use a smiley in my master's thesis, but I have seen many a paper with them and it's both distracting and inappropriate. So smile away in the forums, where you can [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Heavens, yes! I use them all the time on the forum, I didn't intend to convey that. Just that I'd been brought to a startling awareness of how prevalent they were in my random bits of writing. [img]smilies/confused.gif[/img]

I use them rarely, if at all. I don't mind them if they don't end up in all of a persons posts that is when it gets anoying. I think that I have used a whole of at least 2 maybe 3 of them the whole time I have been on the downs.

Question for the X Phial, I saw you use the abbreviation IIRC somewhere? What does it mean?