understanding people's messages

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Weed
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understanding people's messages

Post by Weed »

(forum = message board, discussion board etc)
(messages = posts)

abbreviations are a constant problem -- the most important one is GIYF (Google Is Your Friend) -- in other words if you don't know something, look it up -- go to http://www.google.com and enter a suitable query term such as -

PMSL net slang
ROFLMAO "net slang"
QFT internet lingo
IMHO abbreviations
WTF "meaning of" netslang

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(i've capitalised the abbreviations in the query terms for clarity -- when i do web searches on Google, Yahoo or MSN i usually type the query term all in lower case, on the assumption that searches aren't case sensitive unless that option is chosen -- but if the search is important i'd use capitals as appropriate, cos even if the top results aren't affected, i suspect that sometimes the lower results might be)
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(tip - if you don't want to "lose" a page when you click on a link, right click and select "Open in New Window" -- to get back to the original page from the new window, you can use the keyboard shortcut Alt-Tab -- this shows you all your open windows -- reclicking the Tab key while holding down the Alt key allows you to chose the window you want to view)
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(tip - the default setting on Google is to use moderate filtering to exclude some adult content -- filtering isn't perfect and can exclude inoffensive relevant results -- to remove filtering, click on the "Preferences" link to the right of the search box -- the other thing i tweak is the number of search results per page -- i prefer 20)
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when the search results page come up, there's often no need to click on the links cos the explanation will probably be in one or other of the top half dozen associated page descriptions

another problem on forums is people not understanding each other cos they don't know each other and/or can't see/hear each other and/or don't have a common language -- (this is especially true with English forums cos English is used online by many non native english speakers) -- so (for instance), sarcasm, irony etc are almost certain to be misunderstood -- the rule of thumb is, if it's possible to misunderstand something, then chances are it will be misunderstood -- in 1982 Scott Fahlman suggested using the basic smiley, and this helped a lot, tho most of the complicated smilies to be found in smiley dictionaries are probably more trouble than they're worth -- modern message boads have graphics facilities, and visual smilies (small animated gifs) are usually available which helps prevent confusion -- however, it's still a leap of faith to assume that what's written will be understood the way it was meant, even with the best of intentions and the simplest of messages

that being said, there are tens of thousands of well established message boards dedicated to a particular online community (eg chess players or international terrorists or frog fetishists* or people suffering from depression or whatever) -- these quickly develop local 'dialects' with have their own expressions and specialist vocabularies -- one word that's common to nearly all of them is "noobie" (sometimes abbreviated to "noob") meaning someone who is new to that particular area of the internet

there are also language problems associated with the cultural history of the net, which grew out of the bulletin boards of the 80s, which in turn grew out of ham radio and early computer comms -- (BT's Prestel and Compuserve's Micronet were two of the early commercially available networks) -- the bulletin boards were mainly populated by 1) nerds (geeks) many of whom spoke fluent UNIX (the commonest operating system used by college computing depts), and 2) phone phreakers (telephone hackers) -- the former talked mainly in technical jargon and computerese, and the latter talked mainly in code (to avoid being caught) -- this had a huge influence, tho of course the net is continually changing -- eg L337 (aka leetspeak) is now so common amongst script kiddies that many h4x0rz (leet for "hackers") consider it totally uncool, and it could soon become the internet's first endangered 'language'

into this mix came a population which grew up with mobile phones and texting, where brevity was a necessity, and they happily adapted to existing acronyms and shortened words as well as introducing many of their own -- an example of word compression is "thankyou" -- this was abbreviated to "thanks", then "thnks", then "thnx", then "thx" and finally "tx" -- mobiles are increasing used to access the net, so it will be interesting to see whether these 2 "sub languages" converge

by the early 90s there were 4 main areas of online communication - IRC (Internet Relay Chat), the Newsgroups (Usenet), email and MUD (multi-user dungeons) -- despite (or more likely because of) their simplicity, these are all still going strong -- and as they tend to use plain (ASCII) text which is easy for any computer to understand, they'll probably be around for a long time to come

the classic RTFM page shows several things mentioned above (eg the example text in the "Symptoms" section purports to come from an IRC session) -- PS don't bother following the links on that version of the page

* frogs are surprisingly popular -- my frog pic on Facebook's "Owned!" app is currently valued at $138,081,000
Last edited by Weed on Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Joviale
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Re: understanding people's messages

Post by Joviale »

Thanks for these explanation.
I would add that according to the theory of communication, it's up the the person trying to communicate to make him/herself understandable. Not a moral thing, it's just that he or her is the one trying to communicate. The receptor's role is to receive, not to translate.
If i can't dance to it, it's not my revolution

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Dominic
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Re: understanding people's messages

Post by Dominic »

Jovial, - thanks, I was going to say something to that effect.

Weed, - thanks for the help with code and slang translation. It was enlightening, informative and quite easy for a noob like me to understand. If I need to, I'll refer to it but I'm not likely to study all that stuff.

Read on if your bored and haven't got anything better to do. Otherwise, don't bother.

When I was an adolescent, my dad told me that I would always be a 'nomark', and he was right. He said, I would be like one of those long haired, bearded beatniks.--- I wonder how he knew.(?)--- I was almost still prepubescent and aspired to being a clean-cut, dapper, 'mod', (I was 15, a late developer. It was all 'swinging London and Carnaby Street, before the Frisco hippies headlined.).

The thought of me with a beard was ridiculous, I had to restrain my laughter for fear of my dad getting more angry. I think he was just trying to 'pull-my strings' / 'wind-me-up'. He knew that, at that time, as most adolescents do, I wanted to make my mark. I'm glad to say that I got over it and I'm happy to be a 'nomark',

Perhaps if he had said that I would be a 'nomad', maybe I would have actually done more travelling. As it is, although I've lived, all this time, on wheels and I've moved about a bit, ironically, I've mostly got myself stuck in only one or two places.

'Nomark' is 'scouse' (Liverpool slang) for 'ne'er do well', which is what I thought 'nerd' meant, until I consulted that, American style, slang dictionary.

So I was willing to accept that I'm a nerd but apparently a nerd is >someone who is overly studious< (and wears thick spectacles). That's not me. I thought that was more the definition of a 'geek' but now I find that a geek is >a circus performer who does disgusting acts< (and wears thick spectacles), according to the American definition. (The mind boggles). (and the eyes ----- , well, after looking at this screen too long, ----- goggle-eyed, ---- goggles / boggles, there must be a rhyming quip there somewhere but I can't be bothered).

So, I'm not a nerd or a geek but I guess I am a 'noob'. So if anyone wants me to understand what they are 'on-about' (trying to express), they need to use 'noob language'. Which, for me, is as near as they can to 'proper' English, without too much slang, abbreviation or too many 'big words'. Of course, by 'big words' I mean uncommon words.

In future I will have to assume that, if there's a lot of code, it's not meant for me to understand. I'll have to accept that it's some private thing going on between other contributors, (nnww).(!?). Of course, I can look it up but I probably won't bother.

I give-up easily, which is why I'm a 'nomark'.

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Chris S-S
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Re: understanding people's messages

Post by Chris S-S »

ROFL :lol:
Chris Selwyn-Smith

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Dominic
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Re: understanding people's messages

Post by Dominic »

Chris - I think you exaggerate, I'm sure you didn't ROF, I doubt if you even LOL but I'm glad if you just LTS.

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Chris S-S
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Re: understanding people's messages

Post by Chris S-S »

Dominic -Your right, in the interest of levity I may have exaggerated my level of amusement slightly for which I apologise.
TTFN
Chris S-S
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Re: understanding people's messages

Post by Dantheman »

Wot are you guys talking about? I have used this medium to find info, not coms.I like the phone.Thanks to weed Chis ss this site has inspired me persivere wiv 1.2 digets and not throw this machine out de window!! and to my suprise Im learning.(wot I dont know)

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Joviale
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Re: understanding people's messages (net slang)

Post by Joviale »

I found this useful link for when people use words i don't understand, Last one was "defo" which i found means definetly.

http://www.internetslang.com/
hugs
If i can't dance to it, it's not my revolution

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