I want to study internet language

TheGreatGodPan on 29/4/2006 at 01:18

I think I hate AIMspeak more than anything. I remember one time I was at a netcafe playing Counter Strike (which I suck at, so that could have been factor in my anger) and someone kept shouting out "ELL OH ELL!". It's short for "laugh out loud" so just laugh, don't tell me you're laughing when you're not!

Kolya on 29/4/2006 at 08:45

But people also write LOL sometimes without actually laughing. It may be ironic, or in the case of CS scornful.

Ko0K on 29/4/2006 at 09:14

It is true that sometimes "LOL" is merely a gesture, friendly or otherwise.

Eshaktaar on 29/4/2006 at 09:35

And sometimes it substitutes punctuation lol

TheOutrider on 29/4/2006 at 14:02

Quote Posted by Agent Monkeysee

Why are the codenames always cooler than the actual names? I've witnessed this same phenomenon at Microsoft.

STARCUBE

ZylonBane on 29/4/2006 at 14:40

Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man

More interesting to me are the predictors and mechanisms of meme death.

Is the (mis)use of "meme" to mean "fad" itself a meme?

/and I remember hearing "clusterfuck" at least as far back as an old Carlin tape

D'Juhn Keep on 29/4/2006 at 14:57

Quote Posted by Oxford English Dictionary Online

A cultural element or behavioural trait whose transmission and consequent persistence in a population, although occurring by non-genetic means (esp. imitation), is considered as analogous to the inheritance of a gene.

1976 R. DAWKINS Selfish Gene xi. 206 The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun which conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. ‘Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme... It should be pronounced to rhyme with ‘cream'. Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.

Try again!

SD on 29/4/2006 at 14:57

Quote Posted by ZylonBane

Is the (mis)use of "meme" to mean "fad" itself a meme?

What's with the smarmy condescension? Things can be both a meme and a fad, just as you are both a troll and a gimmick.

{edit: dagnabbit Iggles}

ZylonBane on 29/4/2006 at 18:27

Quote Posted by D'Juhn Keep

Try again!

No. The definition you cited is sufficiently broad that one could categorize anything as a meme. Heck, half the newsgroup discussions on memes are debates on what exactly a meme is.

But hey, we got to see some more of StD's predictable crazed yipping, so it's a net gain.

Wyclef on 29/4/2006 at 18:36