Ok, I’ve always prided myself on being able to understand unfamiliar vernacular (ie I read Shakespeare early, and I can understand my French friends when they speak garbled English), but lately I am getting worried. I seem unable to understand written messages which other people apparently understand quite well. I don’t know if I’m going crazy, or what. This has happened a few times here on the SD, but the most recent occurance was just now while talking to my fiancé on AIM. A few of the message hes sent me had the word “say” in front of it, like:
Apparently, this was not intentional, and when asked about it, he said:
I told him that I did not understand, and to please speak English. He said that he was, and being quite clear to boot. Now, I ask you, does his message make any sense to you? I still don’t understand it, except that he reworded it for me. Also, is my message clear? Are the words in the correct order? Please, I’m afraid that something may be wrong with me.
If it makes you feel any better, none of that post made sense to me!
seriously, one problem I have on AIM is that I accidently hit the “enter” key and send half messages. Maybe that’s what’s happening.
Some mornings it just doesn’t seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.
Emo Philips (stolen from matt’s webpage)
Methinks your betrothed is probably used to typing messages in one of those weird old-fashioned MOOs where you have to type “say” before you say anything. These are live-chat groops (MOO means "Multi-user dungeon, Object-Oriented). That means, it has a bunch of virtual users milling around between rooms chatting in real time, and there are vitual objects. You might have to type “inspect” to inspect objects, and on some groups you can even “whuggle” people, which means to hug them virtually. Here might be an exchange, from the perspective of one user we shall call Moo Fan:
GeekMeister says I am the king of geeks! See my pocket protector!
[you type]
inspect pocket protector
Moo Fan checks out pocket protector.
The pocket protector is extremely geeky.
[you type]
say I loooove your pocket protector! You are sooooo geek-chic!
Moo Fan says I am loooove your pocket protector! You are soooo geek-chic!
Your fiance probably picked up some bad grammar habits there. Most live-chat groups have extremely low standards for syntax, since if you spend too much time editing your comments, the conversation will leave you behind. They’re sort of like Saturday Night Live; we’re sort of like Monty Python.
Boris B, thanks for explaining why he keeps typing “say”.
I think I figured out another problem. He’s not using punctuation correctly. For instance, he typed:
I could not figure out what he meant, until he rewrote the sentence:
I had been going under the assumption that this was one sentence, when in fact, it was two. Now, I don’t expect folks online to use perfect grammar and puncuation (or even spelling), but at least type so that people can understand you!
WallyM7:
I think you’re right! He wants me to go out of my mind so that I can play Magenta (she always seems a little off her rocker, doesn’t she?) and we can have elbow-sex!
Your friend added an extraneous “you” to the second sentence. Remove it and it becomes clear. “Many things I’m on uses say to speak”. Add better punctuation and grammer and it’s quite clear: “Many things I’m on use ‘say’ to speak”. Or perhaps you could twist it like this, added an “in” in front “in many things I’m on, you use ‘say’ to speak”.
Blame the internet. Just read a good article last week about how German is getting similarly corrupted - no capital nouns, “ss” replacing that other thing (i.e. “strasse”).
What’s worse is all the acronyms. Zipf’s Law strikes again.
Cessandra - This has nothing to do with Dyslexia or the OP, but I hit your link to your Rocky Horror Picture Show site and I wanted to let you know I liked it. I had two questions. 1) How did you do the dripping blood? 2) Have you read the Rocky and Bullwinkle Horror Picture Show script? It’s a parody of the movie starring, obviously, Rocky and Bullwinkle (and other Jay Ward characters).
Mike:
Thank you for liking my site!! The dripping blood thing was just a bar that I stole from somebody else’s site; if you want it, you can take it (just left click on it and choose “save image as”).
I haven’t seen the Rocky and Bullwinkle Horror Picture Show, but I think I saw a South Park version somewhere. Of course, I was too lazy to actually read it!
Just a question: did you try to sign my guestbook? I think there’s something wrong with it, but I don’t know if it’s only showing up on my end or elswhere.
Wally:
He does play Crim sometimes, but don’t you see why he wants me to play Magenta? He’s Riff! He wants some elbow-sex!
Wally:
I think the guestbook should be working now; I managed to sign the one on another of my sites.
BTW, he only plays Crim when somebody else wants to play Riff. I think he should be the only one allowed to play Riff, though. He’s so perfect for it, and during “There’s A Light”, he’s gorgeous.
Wait, I thought you hated RHPS? Isn’t that what you said in the Pit?
