I’ve noticed that a lot of Dopers don’t enjoy having to read “Internet-speak”, I suppose, for a lack of a better word. So, I would just like to know what your personal feelings on this are. Personally, I think it’s okay to use Internet acrynoms, etc. in chatrooms and instant messaging. It makes you sound like a sugar-high ten-year-old schoolgirl. However, I can’t stand reading messages like this:
LoLZ!~!~!~~!!! OMG< d1d u SeE th@t h0+ duud3!!~!~1111111 h3’5 50000 h0+++++!!!!~
Geez, it makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Anyways, this is not a Pit thread, so the “poll question” here is what are your feelings on using Internet-speak?
I wouldn’t answer someone who wrote like that, even if they addressed a question to me directly! And if it became too frequent (as in, everybody) I would leave the board.
But you asked about acronyms, and I think some are OK. IANAL is a good one, cause that’s a lot to type out. Also NFW, WTF are two of my favorites, because it lets me swear without actually swearing. (I’m a little snotty about swearing. I think it’s really not necessary to swear to get your point across. But sometimes there are no words!)
In their (an my) defense, the space for a message is limited. rather than send 3 seperate text messages, i will condense it into one.
So nothing really wrong with using numbers in place of words, shortening words, or any of that.
Phone messages I can understand a little shorthand and abreviation.
But on an Instant Messenger or a Message Board. I think it’s lame.
Oh, yes, I agree. I like to “WTF?!” at school because I go to a Christian school and sometimes, I can’t stop myself from swearing. So now I say “WTF” and the teachers can’t really do anything about it because I’m not saying the actual word. Hehe.
For some reason, Internet-speak drives me nuts. Probably because, as a 29-year-old dinosaur who never got into it, I have no idea what it means half the time. The other half of the time, it seems that writing Internet-speak takes almost as much time as just regular writing. IMHO - that I can deal with. But people who butcher words, and say things like “kewlies” when “cool” will do, or do other similar cutsey things, drive me crazy. (I guess kewlies is not an acronym, but it still makes me crazy.)
People that use acronyms should be chemically castrated.
And since the hijack is inevitable (and has already begun to an extent), those that type in 1337 non-ironically should be physically castrated. With rusty sporks. The same for those that use emoticons more than once every dozen posts or type in large obnoxious fonts and colors.
Don’t like 'em, rarely use 'em. The way I figure it, I type over 60 words per minute - it’s not that big a bother for me to type out the acronyms in full. Good practice, you know.
I despise them. Except for the occasional “IMO” or “WTF” or somesuch.
In my opinion, people who use a lot of IM abbreviations in a non-IM environment (well, even there) make themselves appear to be rather on the low end of the parabolic curve. Maybe they aren’t but “How RU?” would make even Einstein look stupid.
I about the same speed as featherlou, and having to actually think about the acronyms would slow me down. I tend to think it looks pretty juvenile as well. It’s the message board version of glitter gel pens and i’s dotted with hearts.
Regularly Touch Feminine Materials?
Righteously Tickle Feather Merchants?
Roger The Foul Madame?
Rigorously Throw Furry Mammals?
As you can tell, I don’t like them because I never have any idea what they mean.
Bolding mine, and I just figured out what it means, I think. Read The Fucking Manual?
What’s really fun is when someone types an acronym and then explains it in parentheses. You often see it in GQ threads where specialist questions are asked and someone prefaces a post with “IANAW (I am not a whatever) but…”.
What the hell is the point in that? It drives me insane.
I’ve never been to a chat room, and I don’t IM with anyone who uses those leet abbreviations, so I have no use for them. Actually, I had to block my teenaged niece from my IM list because she’d change her username every couple of hours, to a long string of characters, using every alt-0000 symbol in the book, mixed with misspelled English words. I’d get a message that she had signed in at every name change. Ugh. You might see me use WTF and WRT and BTW. But that’s all. I have never typed this combination before, and after this, I never will again: LOL. I hate it!
I love my language. It’s the only one I’ve got. I try to use it responsibly.
Common ones like WTF, IANAL, YMMV, etcetera are just fine IMO for message boards. (By the way, does WRT mean With Reference To?) For instant messanging, sometimes the other person types so fast or real life gets in the way so being able to say “brb” or “lmao” is a good thing.
Emoticons are a very helpful utility. To illustrate:
I have never used an abbreviation and never will. The reason is that when I hear words, my mind’s eye sees it in text (freaky, yeah). So “How are you?” and “How R U?” are two completely different things.
I have, however, been reading these boards long enough for some of the common abbreviations (BTW, IMHO, etc.) to have seeped into my thoughts. Which is stanger still because, if I think ‘BTW’ I do not thing ‘bee-tee-double-you’ (stupid, W is three syllables), nor ‘bitwuh’, but just ‘BTW’.
(By the way, does WRT mean With Reference To?) For instant messanging, sometimes the other person types so fast or real life gets in the way so being able to say “brb” or “lmao” is a good thing.