(Are we not men?)
I've noticed an unfortunate tendency for internet slang to creep into language. When it's written, that's fine. But actively pronouncing the letters to WTF or LOL is more than a little stupid.
Think about it: "What the fuck?" Three syllables. "Double-you tee eff" Six syllables (five if you cut it down to "dubya.")
On top of which, you've gone from a brief exclamation of shock to actively considering what you're going to say, and choosing the one that makes you look as much like a douche as possible. Good choice.
Worse, though, is when someone tries to actually pronounce them: there doesn't seem to be any agreement on whether LOL (Laughing Out Loud) is pronounced "lole" or "loll." I've heard both.
This is particularly important (if anything about this rant qualifies as "important") in that, based on its internet usage, "LOL" actually seems to mean "I think this is funny, but I have nothing to say about it."
On a barely-related note, in Dutch, the word "lol" means "fun" ("lollig" means "funny"); likewise, in Welsh, "lol" is a word meaning "nonsense." Because there's no such thing as coincidence.
Other terms are finding other ways to slip into IRL usage. ("In Real Life," in case you missed that one.) "LMFAO" (Laughing My Fucking Ass Off) has become the name of a "musical" group (if by "music," you mean "a drum machine, a couple of looped notes pecked out on a keyboard by a drunk pigeon, a little sampling from talented musicians, and the stupidest lyrics ever recorded - and I include the lyrics to I've Got A Loverly Bunch of Coconuts in that list.")
I mean, there's no better way than this album to say to the world, "If we weren't close relatives to Barry Gordy, we wouldn't have careers."
However, do I have a point to this little diatribe? Yes, yes, I do. I believe that what I'm trying to express can, like everything else on the internet, be best expressed by cats.
LMAO, CPIS (contemplating post in silence), QDM, quietly deciding merit), RJ (rendering judgement), PISPO (post is spot on).
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful the world of acronyms! The world is an oyster bed.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteEventually, if the trend continues, some future president will deliver the SOTU Address to a packed House of Representin' (remember that film Idiocracy?) entirely in a mixture of lolspeak and hazzcheeseburger dialect, if indeed those aren't the same thing. And the audience of Honorable Representin'tators will jump up and down in unison and yell "Booyaaah! Amurcah #1 Booyaah!"
All we can hope in such dark times, as General Jack D. Ripper would say, is that this nation will survive "in peace and freedom from fear through the purity and essence of our natural fluids. God help us all."
Dino,
ReplyDeleteDid you think this was my post? I admit it's the sort of thing I get apoplectic about, but it was not me this time. The intrusion of jargon that was invented just for the purpose of showing that we're really children who still watch Sesame Street (never trust anyone over 12) is obnoxious of course, but my tirades tend to be more about the loss of vocabulary to people who think that "sounds similar" means "means the same"
Tiresome and tiring, fulsome and filling, restful and restive, noisome and noisy -- all of which get Webster's stamp of approval as soon as some adolescents sniffing glue behind a dumpster enunciate them.
Funny how we can insist that spelling is immutable, but anything can mean anything and any word can lose it's meaning to any illiterate who thinks tortuous sounds enough like torturous to rewrite the dictionary - and we all have to live with it without complaint. Awful funny though that such license is most strongly defended by those who are literate and have large vocabularies and don't make such mistakes and have a vested interest in being understood.
Yes, sure, descriptive is better than prescriptive say the folks who are quite happy, none the less to prescribe correct terminology to correct mankind's evil ways. I think I know to whom to assign the blame when conservative means radical anarchist and the same thing can be communism or the product of the free market depending on which definition is needed at the time.
Irregardless ( and who sez that's not a word) left is right and right is right and little lambs eat ivy.
Oh, I see now that it was one Nameless who authored the post -- excusez moi, Nameless. I am but a simple dinosaur, and there are so many of you clever humans to keep track of! Excellent post and spot on.
ReplyDeleteCapt., sorry about that -- yes, I agree on the "loss" issue: it's mainly the efflux of folk who have never opened a book in their lives trying to copy the speech of their linguistic bettahs: the sort of stuff that creates all sorts of comedy in Shakespeare when Dogberry & Co. do it. One hears such silly expressions as "neck in neck" all the time, which make hash out of a perfectly nice phrase. An illiterate hears someone say something and tries to reproduce it, with absurd results that then -- in a culture consisting in large part of illiterates and semiliterates -- risks becoming orthodox.
Well, I guess I'll forgive you... this time.... When your brain is only the size of a walnut, I guess it's easy to mistake people for each other. Especially since I'll bet that all us mammals look alike to you, don't we?
ReplyDeleteNameless,
ReplyDeleteThanks -- yes, I suppose humans look pretty similar to this walnut-brained lizard around dinnertime, though I prefer a nice tender leg of stegosaurus.
"neck in neck"
ReplyDeleteThat's new to me, but someone is always "pushing the envelope" and everyone has a "track record" and you can't get up close to anything without it being personal as well.
Yes, alright, we can have tenets in our apartment building and her virtue can be in tact and still "I could care less" which means precisely the opposite of what I thought I said. I haff to laugh.
I mean there are rules and people need to tow the line and I will wait with baited breath until they stop reeking havoc on the language. I mean people use to get it right - for all intensive purposes.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteYes indeed, for all intensive, intrusive, and inclusive porpoises.