Internet for Newbies
Internet for NewbiesApproximately 30 million people world-wide use the Internet and on-line services daily. The Net is growing exponentially in all areas, and a rapidly increasing number of people are finding themselves working and playing on the Internet. The people on the Net are not all rocket scientists and computer programmers; they are graphic designers, teachers, students, artists, musicians, feminists, Rush Limbaugh-fans, and your next door neighbors. Even though the net is being used by diverse and different group of people, they all have a common bond, language. It is this bond that they will be able to communicate over the internet. In this essay I will define the different types and styles of "Netspeak", the language that is used on the internet, as it is used today on all of the different on-line service providers.
The Net community exists and thrives because of effective written communication, all you have available to express yourself are typewritten words. If you cannot express yourself well in written language, you either learn more effective ways of communicating, or get lost in the shuffle. The ingenious way people are beginning to communicate over the Net is amazing. "Netspeak" is evolving on a national and international level. The technological vocabulary once used only by computer programmers and elite computer manipulators called "Hackers," has spread to all users of computer networks. The language is currently used by people on the Internet, and is rapidly spilling over into mainstream advertising and business. The words "on-line," "network," and "surf the net" are being utilized frequently in newspaper and television. If you're like most Americans, you're feeling bombarded by Netspeak. Television advertisers, newspapers, and international businesses have jumped on the "Information Superhighway" bandwagon, making the Net more accessible to large numbers of not-entirely-technically-oriented people. As a result, technological jargon is entering into non-technological communication. For example, even the archaic UNIX command "grep," (an acronym meaning Get REpeated Pattern) is becoming more widely accepted as a synonym of "search" in everyday communication.
The argument rages as to whether Netspeak is merely slang, or a language in and of itself. The language is emerging based loosely upon telecommunications vocabulary and computer jargons, with new derivations and compounds of existing words, and shifts creating different usages; all of which depending quite heavily upon clippings. Because of these reasons, the majority of Net-using linguists classify Netspeak as a dynamic jargon in and of itself, rather than as a collection of slang.
Linguistically, the most interesting feature of Netspeak is its morphology. Acronyms and abbreviations make up a large part of the Net jargon or netspeak. FAQ (Frequently Asked Question), MUD (Multi-User-Dungeon), and URL (Uniform Resource Locator) are some of the most frequently seen TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) on the Internet. General abbreviations abound as well, in more friendly and conversationally conducive forms, such as TIA (Thanks In Advance), BRB...
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