Neoenglish

Posted on 2002/10/16 24:34:39 (October 2002) by rob.

The death of subtlety.

English is fast becoming the language of science for the modern world. A huge proportion of the world writes scientific papers in English. The language is expanding too, with the Oxford English Dictionary growing each year. New words and sayings are added to the mass that is the English Language. Throughout the lifespan of the language, it has grown and changed, taking on new words as it meets new cultures. This is good for any language, it keeps it fresh and in date. English is hugely redundant, something efficienciphiles and those learning English find irritating. There are many ways to get your point across in lots of different manners. English also allows for intonation: modifying the context or slight meaning without completely changing the word. Wonderful phrases, quotations and prose is all possible because of this.

What pisses me off is this Neoenglish. This ridiculous shortening and then lengthening has no place is normal text. We all use it, when it has merit: such as typing a realtime message to people (Yahoo! Messenger) or where the number of characters are restricted (telephone SMS) but elsewhere English should be written in the proper form. One such phrase that is overused is 'lol'. Short for 'laugh out loud', lol is an excellent example of everything I hate about Neoenglish. So much information is lost by using 'lol' and thus it has lost its impact. People use it in places to punctuate and to note that they made a joke. "A man walks into a bar. Ouch. lol." This is an incorrect use of Neoenglish, would you really laugh out loud at this joke? Surely, if the joke is funny, it does not need to have a 'lol' to punctuate it. Another time I saw lol used incorrectly was in someone's 'CV'. They thought that by putting lol in there, it would show that they are friendly and easy going. All it would show me is that they are a twat.

It does not stop at lol. It goes further into insanity: 'roflmao' or 'roll on the floor laughing my ass off'. Oh, well that's really clever. If the joke was really that funny, why not say so. If I had a corker and used it with effect on a chat room, I would much more appreciate 'Damn funny, thanks.' rather than these automatic-quick-type abbreviations. The over use has made the bland and pointless, like some idiotic modern English.

So, what is the biggest problem with this reduction of language? Subtlety. English has a great power in the manner in which it can be subtle. In fact, the odd humour that Brits tend to exhibit is mostly down to this subtlety. You may think that innuendo is the most unsubtle of devices but it is compared to the Italian 'Farting is Funny' ideals. Only because we have been bombarded with this subtle form of humour (and others), that it does not seem subtle any more. The redundancy in the language allows for this with aplomb and also allows those with a reasonable grip of the language to say far more than the actual words convey. An example of this is "John doesn't drive a car" and "John can't drive a car". There are subtle differences (seemingly obvious to native speakers) that would be lost if Neoenglish takes over. It would be reduced to '!jd(c)'.

Furthermore, if you frequent forums and message boards and you prefer to write things in full, then people whinge that you are waffling or your posts are too long. Often, this is not the case. On an art forum, I prefer to write "I like that piece of work, it feels dark and mysterious" rather than "gw!".

I do think that the addition of Neoenglish is a good thing, it shows a language blending modern issues. What I deteste is the needless replacement of the elegant, complex, redundant and subtle English which is spoken so readily around the world and yet is so rare to find on the internet. Where does it end? Will people start saying 'lol' instead of laughing?

Yet again another classic example of our laziness.
We tned to think that by shortening everything we can just get our point across as fast as possible.
Is that the point of communication?
The point is to make your point as clearly as possibly.
To quote you by saying "gw" in an art forum you make the artist think uh yeah big fucking deal I did a great job.
That's something that you tell to a litte kid.
By telling the artist how you feel about their work and what captivates you about it is getting your point across.
We are lazy fuckers.
I bearly know any of the online slang because I never use it.
I hate it so much.
Oh well just another point of view from this girl.
Lol!
Hey how did that get in there?

Posted by Kitty at 2002/10/16 14:11:33.

What bothers me, Kitty, is the manner in which it is seeping into the general consciousness. That is really scarey. At some point English will be reduced to acronyms whose meaning is derived purely from context.

I'm glad you see things a similar way.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2002/10/16 14:29:29.

I think Kafka would have something to say about Neoenglish. Part of what drove the gifted but neurotic literary genius is the belief that nothing, or at least very little of what people thought they had created was ever truly new. In a lot of his work there's a kind of paradox between a banal resignation to this fact, and a violent struggle to escape it. Neoenglish is an expression of this same banal resignation, a kind of acceptance that everything we do or say, especially in the now very unglamarous world of online communication, is a cliche. Perhaps it's even an unkowing parody of this, that people ended up assigning codewords to these cliches - your lols and your roflmaos. There is something quite upsetting about this.

I'm reminded of a very bad joke, which I believe either Tom or Rob may have told me originally. A new student walks into a lecture room, in which one of the other students has just said "458", followed by everyone bursting out laughing. Then a different student said "2124", and everyone laughed again. The new student, puzzled by this, asked what was going on. He was then informed by the lecturer that, as an exercise in compression, they'd catalogued every joke ever written and assigned them all a number. To save time they just read out the number rather than going to all the effort of the entire joke. Everyone then remembered the joke, and laughed. The lecturer told the new student to give it a go. So, nervously, the new student shouted out "3857", and the room fell silent. After a pause, the lecturer said "It's the way you tell 'em".

Anyway, my point being, yes Rob you are right. Once language, or indeed life, becomes categorised into a sequence of recognised cliches, there really doesn't seem much point to it does there?

Posted by john at 2002/10/16 14:49:20.

Having said all of that, there couldn't be any scope for communication at all without at least some level of human experience being shared and mutually recognisable. Which means, to some extent or other, language wouldn't exist without cliches. So I suppose it's something of a fine line.

Posted by john at 2002/10/16 15:13:35.

The IRC-style chatroom has a lot to answer for in this respect. (And there is another stupid phrase - chatroom.) The widespread usage of email is also a catalyst in the use of NeoEnglish.

It's an issue of speed. Can *you* type? Accurately and speedily? I can do *ok*, but I'm not perfectly accurate. Hell, I can really bang out the words if I have thought about them first, but if I am trying to react in a 'chatroom' environment, even my fingers get tied up. You and I, gentlemen and lady, have been using keyboards for years - some of them, like the BBC and Spectrum 'rubber keys' were bloody awful - and we should be able to type reasonably well by now. For some of you, if you don't type accurately, the peice of code that you're writing will never run.

What about the 'newbies'? (argh! another horrible pseudo-word)
I mean, what about those who are new to computing and the Internet? The 45 year old man who went to PC world last weekend, got "hooked up to the 'net", and is now busy pretending to be a large breasted teenage whore from Manchester called Noreen? Can he really be expected to learn all these new skills at once we ask?

Not really. He's having anough trouble empathysing with Clara and Janine from Ipswich, and trying to cunningly suggest they send him pornographic photos of themselves in bed together. If he needs to say "lol", or "fmdyrdtlnwarp" (fuck me did you really do that last night with a rolling pin) then let him!

BUT. If he tries to use this in email, on his webpage (probably www.youwanttobegnawingnoreen.com) or in any other situation whether on or off line, then it is clearly inappropriate. Oi! Noreen. No! (lol btw)

Posted by rowanboy at 2002/10/17 09:25:14.

Newbie is another excellent example of Neoenglish. You're right Tom, it has a place. And that is on instant chat. And only on instant chat.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2002/10/17 11:16:58.

I think it's still annoying on chat thingymebobs (is that meta-neo-pseudo-english perhaps?). But then I guess chatrooms are just annoying altogether. I'm not sure I really see the need. As a person who grew up in the pub trade, I can't help but think this issue had already adressed somewhat earlier and somewhat more satisfactorily. But, having fallen foul of the inexplicable lure of chatrooms myself in the past, I guess I don't have a leg to stand on.

Posted by john at 2002/10/17 24:27:49.

Chat rooms themselves I have no issue with. It's the terrible neo-english that are required. Once in a while, Fish or Dwain will start up a Yahoo Messenger Conference so we can sort out details for gatherings (such as Fishcon this weekend). For that, it is invaluable.

I am with you on the use of Neoenglish, it should be stopped / banned / restricted / controlled in almost a fascistic manner. Let the new language burn is what I say.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2002/10/17 15:52:58.

By far the most irritating ism I have found is the anoying txt shorthands, where ppl use random shortnesses 4 common words 2 save space. I woman at our office sends company wide emails out using these conventions & it leaves u wondering about her mental age.

Posted by dsp at 2002/10/21 13:07:58.

That, Dr. Sneeky P. is an excellent example of misuse of Neoenglish.

I wish Neoenglish was more like the Bladerunner 'Street Speak'.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2002/10/21 14:04:13.

I am really disappointed. www.youwanttobeknawkingnoreen is not a real website.

Posted by john at 2002/10/21 21:05:35.

I think I missed out the .com there.

Posted by John at 2002/10/21 21:06:04.

Boy, I stumbled upon this page by accident, but having read the article on "neoenglish" and chatroom lingo, I must admit I was sort of lost. I guess by completely avoiding the chat room phenomena I haven't had to deal with anyone but real animate people either in the flesh or on the telephone. And I can safely assume that if I continue in this course of communication, I will never need to learn "neoenglish." Hot dang!
Furthermore, in my studies of globalization and the expanding electronic herd (as T. Freidman likes to put it) across the world, I have noticed a passive assimilation of lifestyle based on this sudden urge to "chat" day in and day out; to mingle with a crowd in the comfort and privacy of your living/bed/bathroom, and accept it as normal, interpersonal dialogue. Silly me, I'd much rather meet face to face (or at least in hearing distance of their voice) and try to take a stab at forming a relationship that is based on a foundation that is more stable than a shared diagnosis of terminal internetitus. But that's just my opinion.

To everyone who spends more than 2 hours a day on the web: GO OUTSIDE. PLAY WITH YOUR KIDS. VISIT A NEIGHBOR. TAKE A WALK. ENJOY THE WORLD AROUND YOU BEFORE IT DISAPPEARS.

Thanks for "listening" to my cyber-babble.

Posted by The Director at 2002/10/25 03:07:56.

The Director, I think many of us share your feelings and perhaps, worries. Let's hope that because of this Neo-techno-culture, which has spawned the often misused Neoenglish, will not lead to the death of more traditional and information rich forms of communication.

So much understanding and subtlety is lost even on the telephone or in written text that can be easily conveyed in body langauge. Of course, not every communication will remain in person (we would have to return to the Victorian Age for that) but this Neo-culture should not replace that.

Technology can be dangeous, some of it in obvious ways (splitting the atom) but technology like the internet is dangerous in a subtle and uncontrollable manner.

Thanks for the comments. Feel free to reply to any others.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2002/10/25 11:21:28.

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