[MUD-Dev2] The Merits of Text Chat (Was: Importance of emoting)

[Matt Chatterley]

On 21/05/07, Michael Hartman <mlist at thresholdrpg.com> wrote:
[Snip]

Evolution is not automatically corruption. Language evolves because it
> is a tool for efficient communication. Language is a means to an end.
> Even in areas "uncorrupted" by text chat we frequently invent shortcuts
> and they become ubiquitous elements of our language. These "shortcuts"
> are not only valid but positive and efficient. Do you really decry the
> existence of terms such as: car, tv, phone, kleenex, scuba, radar, etc?
>
> I can understand your frustration with "leet speak", but I think you are
> letting that color your opinion of a proven, effective, efficient, and
> in some situations superior mode of communication.


In any sort of (reasoned) forum of debate, the evolution of language is
always a hot topic.

As you rightly observe, it has always happened, and is on the whole, a good
thing - its a sort of group-optimization of language, on the whole. Some
acronyms make the transition into fully fledged words, others become
commonplace (although people do not always know what they stand for!), and
other words are mangled, mauled and generally amended by each new
generation.

On the other hand, this has certainly become more prevalent since the advent
of "txting", and the forms of corruption which we are seeing are subtly
different - they are not due to linguistic inefficiencies (automobile is far
less efficient than car, for example), nor are they due to "globalization"
or cultural integration - but rather, they are optimized forms of common
words for a text-based media.

It's somehow distressing to many of us to find that these terms are then
slipping back into the spoken language! Some are fairly innocent textual
representations of sounds (m8s for mates, l8r for later and so forth) -
theres a certain logic behind me, although I still loathe the sight of these
things, and prefer to spend agonizing minutes writing messages - well in
fact, I prefer to make a phone call - but its not always practical or
possible.

One thing is certain though - we can't get rid of them, or kill them off. If
70% of joe public choose to use "oh noes!" for example, the other 30% of us
can't really do anything about it!


Cheers,

Matt