Comments in someone else's LJ

[scarfman]

theferrett wrote about using netspeak in spoken language. One of his commenters said: See, I don't generally differentiate between "online" life and "real" life. I replied:

I don't either, not in language usage. Now, I'll occasionally use netspeak on the net - for instance, lol (if I genuinely laughed out loud) - in the same way that I occasionally used, e.g., the word fuck when I lived in a college dorm. But generally I'm one of the people who're told I talk like I write and vice versa.

Another commenter said, in a discussion of using MUD, MMORPG and chat emotes in spoken language, I never MMORPGed. I just say "sigh" a lot. I have no excuse at all. I replied,

I know someone who's been doing that since the 80s at least*. It comes from reading comics, I'm sure.

* I'm on your flist. You know who you are.

Comments

[athelind.livejournal.com]

It might come from Mork & Mindy, which would also be the right era. Mork would frequently verbalize such "chat emotes" such as "Oh, heavy sigh."

That's when I started doing it, anyway.

[abates.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the future of English! At least no one's said "colon dash close-bracket" yet...

[billroper]

Actually, it comes from PLATO chat. There, it was punctuated *sigh*. :)

[scarfman]

Oh. I stand corrected, and disappointed.

[billroper]

That's ok. On the other hand, it dates back to 1974 or thereabouts...

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

And then, sometimes, some people just have a mental tic where they vocalize certain things out of habit, and use of the Internet and reading comics (Peanuts and Cathy are two pre-Net ones that pop immediately to mind) is just social reinforcements. When I was a wee, little child,* I used to say "Sneeze!" every time I sneezed:

:::Het-choo!::: "Sneeze!" :::Het-choo!::: "Sneeze!" :::Het-choo!::: "Sneeze!"

Not sure where it came from, but Mother always figured I picked up the habit when I was just starting to talk, and learning to label things.

Now, I find myself saying "bee tee double U" as verbal punctuation. Before I got heavy into Email, though my punctuating phrase was: "Well, Aaaannyway..."

*

Unrelated to your post, but...

[28bytes.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if you were going to be one of the guest artists on HotS. Good job!

[prettydragoon.livejournal.com]

Colon Dee.

... why are you all looking at me funny?

Great!

[(Anonymous)]

Hello! Author, you're absolutely right!
And beautiful site, interesting site name scarfman.livejournal.com :), I see you you're are not newbe. Go on with the nice job!