Friday, June 4, 2021

The Ever-changing Language of the Internet

        A topic that I touched on briefly in the forum posting was the fact that there are words and phrases in McCulloch’s book that have different meanings now than they did at the time she wrote the book. It is important to remember that her book was published in 2019 does the changes that have occurred have occurred quickly. Internet language can change yearly, monthly, weekly or even daily. There are still many aspects of chapter three are still use today however there are some that are not or are not as popular.

       The first example I found was the use of capitalization in the middle of words. McCulloch describes it as a static or sparkle however now it is used to mock others or to be sarcastic because of a meme. 



      McCulloch describes the use of symbols as a sign of sparkle or aesthetic as well. This IS something that she touched on and I had to include it in this blog because it was very interesting to me. Internet users use the star emoji when emphasizing a word or being sarcastic. For example if someone asks a question and another replies with ✨no.✨

      Also I do not think that she accounted for how important emojis are when Internet talking. She uses symbols and :) but doesn’t go into a lot of detail on actual emoticons. 



     McCulloch used BTW and IMO, which are commonly used today. However she also uses the acronym for “if I recall correctly” and “as far as I know” which I would have no idea what those meant if they were sent me in acronym form (iirc, afaik).


Btw I wouldn’t know 90% of these if they were sent to me!

        Lastly, it shocked me that she included the research study that showed that many people purposely make some of their words lowercase even at the beginning of sentences. In my experience I don’t know anybody who does that but also I’ve never asked. I may get thrown under the “lazy” stereotype but that sounds like too much work for me.


4 comments:

  1. A fun post! (The emoji stuff is coming in the McCulloch book...)

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  2. It's interesting to me, because "iirc" and "afaik" and "idk" and other related acronyms are so engrained in my speech at this point that I'll occasionally send them in a text message to my internet-illiterate mother without thinking, and, of course, then have to explain what in god's name I meant.

    And at least now you know one person who'll leave words lowercase on purpose! I do that most of the time when I'm speaking casually on social media, mostly to indicate that I'm being casual/not serious. In fact, the first paper I wrote this semester was analyzing the most of someone who used no capitals throughout their entire (long) social media post except to Emphasize Important Words!

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  3. This sentence, "she also uses the acronym for “if I recall correctly” and “as far as I know” which I would have no idea what those meant if they were sent me in acronym form (iirc, afaik)," cracks me up, Hannah. Or makes me lol, or whatever;) Mostly because I would not know what those mean, either!

    The other thing I found interesting was your last paragraph about the research study. I have a friend that uses no punctuation in her texts or social media posts. It drives me crazy. It doesn't matter if it's three paragraphs or one sentence, she just never uses punctuation or capitalization, though I never thought about whether or not she was doing it on purpose. I literally have no idea where one idea/sentence ends and where the next begins. Fun post!

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  4. Thank you so much for continuing McCulloch's study to current 2021 internet speech. I noticed while reading this chapter, that some of the things she was talking about was either a bit dated (if that term can even really apply to only THREE years ago) or the meaning has been altered since then. It is also noteworthy just how quickly these things have changed even within such a short period of time in between the book's publication and when we are reading it.

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