Today, over at Bike Forums, I received the following message from a new forum member:
how ya doin? bike noob here. interested in finding someone close by that knows some good places to ride. know anyone interested in some laid back riding?
I considered not replying to the question simply because the questioner used the so-called word noob (plus the writer didn’t bother to mention where he or she lives).
I’m not a Grammer Nazi; anyone who has read this site before knows I make my share of mistakes. But at least I try to use standard English.
What is it about forums that seemingly invites users to unload word fragments and other common gibberish on the innocent public? “Words” such as srsly, prolly, ‘cuz, r, u, and dunno. Not to mention the rampant non-use of capitalization.
Google Language Tools should add an “Internet Forums” option to its translation box so you can convert some of this stuff to English.
I assume some of this usage is an extension of the texting culture; people are simply too lazy to type out words.
Whatever the case, it annoys me.
I too find it frustrating that phone text symbolism is sometimes used on blogs and forums.
Though “noob” is fairly common, the inability to be less than clear seems to just as much so.
I’m no professor of the English language, but I do have a great deal of respect for it.
When I write, I try to use quality English in amongst my personal, invented terminology. Even when I invent words, it try to use terms that are easy to spot and compare to real words.
For instance, I substitute “asshattery” for “uber-stupidity” and everyone knows what I’m saying.
It’s not easy having an original style in the blogosphere with so many gifted writers around.
🙂
Oops
“less than” should not be there.
Ah well, I had to make a grammatical face-plant at some point today. Why not here?
😛
Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language 😉
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo