language and the internet

[Guest]

EDIT: More specifically, I ask because I have several Swedish friends who picked up English so quickly and so naturally that I was really quite amazed and wondered how much of idiomatic English had been taken up as a part of Swedish. (Media influence, the internet, adverteising and all that good stuff would then seem to be quite a factor in the answer to my question)

I'm sure I'll be barbequed for saying this, but Swedes (and their Scandinavian sister countries) aren't very religious, okay, the majority basically have no religion at all.

Now since that's a large part of what the countries culture is about, we don't have much to lose by "converting" to English, and there are many English things which can be counted as religions (the net, music, films, drugs . . .).

I'm not sure I know what you mean with idiomatic (yes I looked it up in a dictionary), but I've been asked if I was American, or others have been very surprised when they found out I was Swedish.




I would normally not say this, but because of the nature of the thread, I did it anyway. I'm sure I phrased/explained things wrong, sorry in that case.

[Occhidiangela]

I feel like I'm working and stressing over this class a whole helluva lot more than it deserves. Volume does not guarantee excellence. If I can make a point clear and concise in the alloted time with the alloted length, I shouldn't be forced to use some bloated and anecdote-ridden document as a yardstick to measure my work or success.

You could have a productive conversation on that italicized topic. :)

In my experience, volume of concisely written prose is good, but in general, if you can say it with fewer words and retain context and meaning, you achieve the aim and don't wear out your target reading audience.

Did you ever see the movie "A River Runs Through It?" There is an early vignette where a young man is told to rewrite again and again, "shorter" that is identical to a drill my older brother went through in 8th grade English. Say it just as well with fewer words. Draft, redraft, edit, re edit.

Saying it with less is a great deal more work than saying it with more, since you have to choose and weigh each word, each pharse, far more carefully.

[Mithrandir]

I've gotten into research on teachers and Netspeak, so that's a whole new chunk of my paper right there. I'm editing paper and portfolio in the editing studio, while project #3 compiles. Also ran into another Grammar student on the way to the editing studio, who said that the 5-hour exam is looking more like an 8-hour one. The essay question is the size of my midterm, and then the sentence diagramming!

[Snipity Snip Snip]

So that's why I've been out in the snow and screaming.

That's why God invented Engineering.

[AtomicKitKat]

Nightwind wrote: where do you stand on a nice pile of raw fish on vinagered rice?

Sushi? Sashimi? Tepanyaki? DONBURI? BRING EM ON! :lol:

[Nightwind]

what ones is tepanyaki?

and is there any way to make eel less salty?

isn't strange that sombody who can't stomach fish at all cooked.. will devour it raw...

[AtomicKitKat]

Tepanyaki, when translated into Chinese, then back to English, means "Steel Plate Roast/Fry/Burn" It's that one you're always seeing on TV, where the chef moves his knife at blazing speeds, chopping up everything, tossing the salt/pepper shakers around, etc. all on the hot plate. Except IRL it's not THAT spectacular. The food itself is not bad though.

Unagi Kabayaki(Grilled Eel) is usually served in a sweetish soy sauce type mixture. I think the saltiness is part of the preservative or the eel itself. You could always run a little miso soup over the eel in your bowl, washing the sauce/salt into your rice. That should cut down the saltiness(the rice is bland, compared to everything else, anyway. :P)

[Nightwind]

the only thing i tried saturday that i couldn't stomach was eel maki...
too salty...

I've been at places that do the dancing food thing... but I tend to avoid itunless I want to show off to my boss

[AtomicKitKat]

You want salty try jellyfish/octopus maki(sushi? Not sure) Spicy AND salty. Plus locally, a lot of sun-dried seafood(seahorses, fish, shrimp) is available. THOSE are salty, especially if deep-fried(I hide far from my grandmother's kitchen when she starts)

[Count Duckula]

*does the "my paper is turned in and my hands are washed of it" dance*

Now, on to the Astronomy final. Hey! Maybe I can get home by Wednesday. ^_^

Thanks for all y'all's help. I'll post the final sometime tonight.

[Bob]

1 - Can internet language (Netspeak, aka "1337-speek") be considered a new form of language, or is it just jargon or at best a dialect?

It cetainly isn't a new language. It's English, albeit 'modified'. Although I can't cite any examples, I can't see why one language can't be expressed in more than one written form. Wait, yes I can, you could write English phonetically, or the way it's meant to be. Either way, it's still English. "1337 5p34k" is simply writing it differently, and you could just be seen as a different character set. How about coding, such as cyphers. Well, basic ones anyway, like rot-13 (rotate each letter through the alphabet 13 places, do the same to decypher, requires less programming). The symbol 'a' now makes the sound that would normally be associated with 'm' - but it's no less the English language. '1337 5p34k' is simply using different characters to express the same letter. Why shouldn't it be considered English if I want to express the sound 'p' by the symbol combination '|o' ? So long as everyone I'm communicating to understands that.
As for netspeak (LOL, ROTFL, G2G, OMG j00 H4x0r5 n00b) It's mostly really only English words abbreviated to a different set of letters, either as an acronym, phonetic spelling, or, er, I can't think of another 'or' right now. No one has ever complained aboutt he acronym USA for united states of America. Most people know that the Letters, U, S & A in that order expand out to the words United States of America, they can even put the 'of' in by themselves. For cases like LOL and ROTFL, it's just a different set of words.
It's not a different language.
Jargon, is quite a good word for it. It's specialised language, and taking it's everyday definiton, is also only likely to be known by those who it concerns, i.e. Netiziens. Just as USA, and 'mouse potato' have made it into the dictionary, no doubt internet terms will soon follow.
Is it a dialect? Well, my dictionary defines dialect as spoken, but, that aside, yes, I suppose it is - you have new 'words' which can easily be slotted into sentences made from a larger overall language.
I suppose you could say that English isn't a real language as it's made up of bits of lots of other languages. Which you could apply to this new 'internet language' to say that it isn't really new. However, unlike English, 'netspeak' has taken most of it's words from English, I can't think of many examples or 'net words' that come from other languages. Thus it's not new, in itself

2 - Are there any teachers or professors out there that wish to share an anecdote of student usage of internet language? (Shortcuts in schoolwork, etc.) I'm all ears.

Not me, but if I can get off my back end to write a '1337 5p34k' generator, I may hand my next history essay in with a '1337 5p34k' translation.

3 - For everyone whose first-learned language is something other than English, how do you feel about the amount of English on the internet? Do you feel that you must communicate in English in order to get your point across?

Not me, again, but I do feel that for the internet to be a rapid medium for information transfer, there HAS to be a common language. In the same way that the internet wouldn't work if the computers didn't all speak the same protocol whether they be Windows based, Unix based or macs, It wouldn't work very well if most people didn't use the same language over it. Should it be English? well, English most likely makes us the majoriy of first languages for internet users. Mostly because the internet is most common in rich, western countries like the USA and Britain, which speak English, and less common among poorer nations which don't.
Should it be English? I don't know, should there be a 'common' language? yes. Infact, netspeak has helped in that regard. There is no grammar in netspeak (or vfery little at least) spellings or words are non-particular. It is therefore a much easier language to learn. You don't have to know about its & it's, lets and let's, just stick an 's' on the end at it all means the same.

4 - Anything else anyone wishes to add on the subject will be a plus.

'netspeak' seems to be proliferating into common tongue. Just this week mt brother slipped a typed note under my door which ended in 'TY', since he'd gone to all the trouble of starting word, making it into a fancy wordart with a colour fill and putting a shadow in, I can't see, in relative terms, how much time was saved by writing 'TY' instead of 'thanks'. So I presume that he thinks with his fingers and when he wasnts to thank someone, hits 'TY'. Another part of that may be that kids don't know how to use a keboard properly. Whewn I started highschool, we had out first IT lessons, we had to type out a page of text, I finished in about 5 minutes flat (having had a computer in the house for about 3 years pervious and hsving done a lot of schoolwork on it) The rest of the class were on about 12 letters per minute, and took the full hour to complete the task. To type 'TY' is far easier than having to search for T-H-A-N-K-S or T-H-A-N-K- -Y-O-U. Especially as T & Y are right next to each other.
Also, he frequently says 'TY' and 'PPL', perhaps to impress his net-savvy brother, or because he's thick. My Physics teacher (who's an odd sort of chap) admits to says 'peeps' in private life. I, myself, just try to figure out how you pronounce the various profanity-soaked acronyms circulating the internet.


And here is the gold award for surviving boredom. You earned it by reading my post.

-Bob

Edit: Just read Ducky's previous post. DO you have any idea how long I just spent typing that?

[Occhidiangela]

It's Venus. :) A Planet. There, that's all the help I can offer on astronomy, since my skill at celestial navigation expired some years ago. :)

Oh, wait, the Big Dipper does not look like a bear, but it does look like a skillet, a sickle, or a gravy ladle, depending on how you look at it and what mental stimulants you have imbibed.

Let's see, playing intergalactic golf: A birdy sec is one shot better than a par sec. *groan*

A black hole is not a massive gravity singularity, it is my inbox, ask anyone who works for me.

Sun spots are not the same as the heartbreak of psoriasis, they are freckles.

Saturn's rings are those things in my car's engine that keep the oil in the crank case and out of the combustion chamber.

Jupiter is a symphony by Mozart.

The moon is not made of green cheese, Gromet, and Mars is not make of chocloate nougat.

Mercury was the messenger, not the massager, of the Roman gods.

Pluto is always kept at the furthest out orbit due to what he did on Mickey Mouse's carpet.

Uranus . . . we won't go there, I want to keep it clean. DOH! Looks like I went there by accident, please forgive me, it was one of Wilde's! What I meant was . . . . pbfbfbtbftftftf!

Neptune I have no joke for, but for horror novels, I will take Poe's Side on rather than King's. :)

And as we all know, Asteroids is the best twitch game ever made. :D

[Chaerophon]

Okay, sorry about the "wordy" question. Here goes another try: I realize that sentence structure will be a problem in "word for word" translations. However, it seems to me as though English is a particularly idiomatic language (at least when compared to French). I could be wrong.

What I'm wondering is whether it was fairly easy for you to pick up idiomatic English due to its "crossover" into Norwegian via media and internet influences, or, was it extremely difficult? Often when I attempt to speak French (I do have a decent knowledge of sentence structure, etc.), I find that what I'm trying to say does not have the same meaning when directly translated, and out comes the book of idioms. However, my Swedish friends picked up idiomatic Englich with very little trouble. Perhaps it simply has to do with the effects of learning a language through immersion as opposed to learning via school and tapes: you would know better than I...

Basically, my question is: is there a lot of idiomatic crossover from English to the Scandinavian languages? For instance, it seems as though the Swedes, Fins, and Norwegians of the NHL tend to have a much better command of the language than do their Russian, Czech, and French speaking counterparts.

[[wcip]Angel]

In the old days, (pfft) Norwegian pupils started learning English in 4th grade, at the age of 11-12. Today, we're learning it as soon as we start in school, meaning at the age of 6.

I should mention that although we learn English very early on, not everyone are as proficient as one is led to believe. First off, there is a huge (huge!) problem with pupils' writing skills. They can speak English quite well for their age (at the age of 13-16) due to American popular culture (music, tv, cinema, etc) but they can't write. My aunt was an English teacher at a lower secondary (age 13-16) school and she (as well as other teachers I've spoken with) feels Norwegian pupils can't write proper English. There's a general consensus that while Norwegian children have an impressive command of oral English, they are severely lacking in knowledge of grammar, spelling and punctuation.

English is a germanic language, as is Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. There are some basic similarities. Russian and Czechoslovakian are not Germanic languages (as far as I know. And I don't remember the proper term for them either, but basically these modern language did not grow from the same language English and the Scandinavian languages did.)

I should also mention that today one could argue that there's an English invasion/contribution of words into the Norwegian language. More and more English words are being used as Norwegian. Even I (who am very much in favour of this) reacted when I went to see "Master and Commander" at the cinema a few days back. There were countless English words in the Norwegian subtitles which could have easily been translated into Norwegian counterparts.

I'm not sure if this was just lazyness or done delibaretely.

[Count Duckula]

Uranus . . . we won't go there, I want to keep it clean.   DOH!    Looks like I went there by accident, please forgive me, it was one of Wilde's!  What I meant was . . . . pbfbfbtbftftftf!

Believe it or not, there are a few special things about Uranus. For one thing, Uranus has a special tilt on its axis. Most planets tilt about 20-40 degrees (with the Earth's tilt at 32.5), but Uranus' axis tilt is about 62 degrees. Uranus rolls in the heavens like a marble circling a drain.

Also Uranus, like the other Jovian planets, is mostly made up of methane. ;)

Thanks for the quick astronomy lesson, Occhi, but I think I passed the exam on my own--and without any help from Uranus, might I add. There was no Uranus on my exam! I think I'm going to message Prof. Joseph and complain. :huh:

[LavCat]

You want salty try jellyfish/octopus maki(sushi? Not sure) Spicy AND salty. Plus locally, a lot of sun-dried seafood(seahorses, fish, shrimp) is available. THOSE are salty, especially if deep-fried(I hide far from my grandmother's kitchen when she starts)

You hijacked the thread from viscera to cephalopods!

When my son was little his good friend was someone who had moved here from China. The friend described his mother's cooking to me as "burnt wok food," but my son enjoyed it and developed a taste for several creatures unaccustomed to most western children.

The friend and his sister were avowed Iberiophiles, to possibly coin a word, so much so that the sister spent an exchange student year in Spain. I am very fond of Paella, which is a Spanish seafood, rice, and whatever else dish (traditionally I think donkey), prepared with lots of saffron. I have not made it much in years, but in addition to cephalopods I would use crustacea, univalves and bivalves, trying for nice color combinations.

Eel I like in moderation, but it is salty and I gather difficult to prepare. The recipe I have begins "Nail the head to a door..."

I draw the line at jellyfish.

One day I looked out the window to see the children chasing down a baby bunny. I walked outside and enquired what it was that they were doing? Whatever the truth I was told that they wanted it for Paella. The bunny, though, was a bit too fast for them.

(My son is a member of the lounge, but he does not post much, and fortunately I don't think he has the attention span to read this far into a thread.)

[Occhidiangela]

  I think I'm going to message Prof. Joseph and complain

Just as long as you don't massage Prof Joseph and complain, no one wants to here a complaint during a back rub!

*ducks* That were 'orrible, gov simply 'orrible!

[AtomicKitKat]

Wow, a parent. I didn't figure you for that. :)

But I guess it HAS been mentioned before. The lounge attracts more "mature"(physically and mentally) members than your average bnet crowd.

Jellyfish is as the name suggests. It's got a consistency similar to, I guess, cartilage? You know, when you knaw off those shiny white things on the joint of a chicken bone?

Sea urchin is pretty good too.

I'd love to try paella some day. Haggis too. Both sound fun. Can anyone tell me what a "shepherd's pie" is supposed to be? The one my mother brought home some time back didn't seem like much beyond a regular chicken pie. I was expecting something with maybe sheep guts in it. :P

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

no touchy

[Count Duckula]

No topper for you, note boy. ^_^

Speaking of, where were you when this thread was going on? Where was Pete, or even Elric himself?

PS: Occhi, celebrated paper/portfolio/exam finish with the first ever Guinness/Smirnoff study break. Guinness sure packs a punch...

[Bob]

shepherd's pie:

Minced lamb, maybe with some gravy stuff, up to you, in a pie dish and topped with mashed potato. Oh, yeah, you cook it as well.

If it was like a chicken pie, someone's been selling you the wrong thing.

-Bob