Curse

Zahr Dalsk · Mar 20, 2008, 08:16 PM // 20:16

"OMG I r teh awsome at dis" does not count as an alternate or evolved form of language. You will never get a job with a resume using such spelling. Many interviewers will generally just toss a resume into the garbage at the first sign of crude spelling or grammar. I've got your 'language is changing all the time' right here.

Kattar · Mar 20, 2008, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Hmm...didn't think I would start a flame war...

Can we get back on topic please? And thanks?

Chasing Squirrels · Mar 20, 2008, 08:20 PM // 20:20

Players with Xx in their name and players who add z at the end of words like lolz.....

kokuou · Mar 20, 2008, 08:22 PM // 20:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zahr Dalsk

"OMG I r teh awsome at dis" does not count as an alternate or evolved form of language. You will never get a job with a resume using such spelling. Many interviewers will generally just toss a resume into the garbage at the first sign of crude spelling or grammar. I've got your 'language is changing all the time' right here.

Of course an interviewer will throw away that resume.
But you're missing what I say about social setting and language adaptations. An interview is a non-relaxed, professional business setting, and using language such as "cAn u pl0x hire me plzzzzzz" breaks those sociolinguistic rules, which results in the exclusion of that person in that particular setting; in other words they aren't hired or they are fired.

And when I say language evolves, I'm talking about spoken language, for the most part, and its rules. I'm sure if there were any Old or Middle English speakers alive today, they would be appalled at what we've done with their "language."

Zahr Dalsk · Mar 20, 2008, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by kokuou

Of course an interviewer will throw away that resume.
But you're missing what I say about social setting and language adaptations. An interview is a non-relaxed, professional business setting, and using language such as "cAn u pl0x hire me plzzzzzz" breaks those sociolinguistic rules, which results in the exclusion of that person in that particular setting; in other words they aren't hired or they are fired.

That sort of language, though, is equally unacceptable in a relaxed social setting; it's like having a big, unkempt, loud jock in what's supposed to be a friendly, intelligent discussion, only in text form.

Usurp · Mar 20, 2008, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by kokuou

As a linguist, I have a few things to say about grammar.

First of all, most of the complaints people have are not about grammar; they are about spelling, punctuation, and the omitting (or replacing) of letters. Grammar has to do with the syntactic structure of a language, and a native speaker can never use "incorrect" grammar. Of course there are slip-ups (such as speakers changing what they are going to say part way through an utterance, which makes the part they have already said possibly grammatically strange), but in regular speech, a native speaker will never break grammar rules in the way that a non-native speaker would (i.e. "The mans was rode in car" would never be uttered in natural speech by a native speaker, where as it very well may be by a non-native speaker).

As a linguist, we are taught to be descriptive. That is, we look at language and how people use it and we describe phenomena and trends that we see. Prescriptivists, on the other hand, "prescribe" language rules, saying things like, "You can't split an infinitive!" (which, by the way, is a rule chosen by someone arbitrarily based on LATIN of all languages).

The fact is that people DO break these types of "rules" all the time. Language, by definition, is created and evolved by its speakers. English, for example, has gone through extensive changes in the past few hundred years. (Don't believe me? Look up Chaucer, a famous writer of Middle English.)
And because language evolves based on how its speakers use it, this can render old "rules" obsolete for a number of reasons.

I do believe in the proper use of language with traditional rules (to a certain degree; there are some rules I despise and will not adhere to) for applications of language such as professional publications, university papers, and the like, because it is acceptable, or rather required, in such settings.

As for the language used in-game, this is simply the culture of the in-game population. As said above, it's textspeak, and it has nothing to do with a person's intelligence. Admittedly, overdoing it can result in something hard to read for the uninitiated, but that's the way that young players have chosen to express themselves.
Personally, I find it sociolinguistically awkward to type with capital letters and perfect punctuation in-game. It would be like saying to a close friend, "May I have the privelege of accompanying you to a movie this coming weekend?" Language is used based on the social setting, and when such social rules are broken, it results in awkwardness and the possibility of being labelled strange or even excluded from that culture.

If you've found a group of friends that use perfect spelling, punctuation, and capitalization to talk with, then, by all means, fly at 'er. But remember, to judge someone based on how they type (judging people based on the CONTENT of what they type is a different matter completely) is a form of discrimination and such linguistic "shortcuts" should have no bearing on that person's intelligence.

As a fellow linguist, I disagree with you on some points.

Grammar - The system of inflections, syntax, and word formation of a language.

Grammar is about more than simply syntactic structure. Of course it is unreasonable to expect people to use formal rules of composition in the forums of topic. However, your analogy comparing the use a basic grammatical rules to speaking in an elevated style to your friends is not valid. It is more like saying "Hey...let's go grab a bite" instead of "Yo...noob...we're gonna go pwn some burgers and then we'll brb." Both are acceptable in casual conversation, but will give you a different opinion of the person who is speaking. People are, and have historically been, judged by how they present themselves. Communication is a large contributor to this image.

I gather from your synopsis of the issue that you are a student of the post-modern school of thought. Reading your post reminded me of sitting in university education classes where I was forced to listen to claims that AAVE is a valid language. It is a fact that all languages are continuously evolving, be it minor gradual changes (the popularity of certain words growing/diminishing) or major changes (French/Latin influence introduced to English in 1066 AD by William's conquest). This does not excuse the complete pejoration of the language, and is more pertinent when analyzing the trends and events of the sort mentioned above. If I am "labeled strange" for adhering to basic linguistic rules...then so be it. As soon as we excuse and accept this type of bastardization, then that is when it becomes acceptable. This, I will never do.

Good fortune.

Joe L. · Mar 20, 2008, 09:54 PM // 21:54

What kind of players do you hate the most?

ALL

mrmango · Mar 20, 2008, 09:59 PM // 21:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turbobusa

KOABD max title.
about 70% of them are eles with either a MB/RI build or SF. They think they're good at the game and post shit suggestions over the boards.

MB + RI used to be quite pro, I don't know what you're talking about.

People that whine about skill balance and those that whine in general.

Personette · Mar 20, 2008, 11:48 PM // 23:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by kokuou

Actually, different style guides have different ways of doing things for a number of different grammatical rules. Language is faaaaaar, far, far from black and white, and if you think so, you've got another thing coming.

Good point. Let me rephrase: there are right ways, and there are wrong ways.

Also, did you know the phrase is supposed to be: "You've got another think coming"? I just found that out recently and now I'm sharing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kokuou

GW is a game, where people go to relax and hang out with friends, which in turn allows for the relaxed, buddy-buddy-like in-game speech that we see.

Everybody speaks differently in different situations. But an educated person and an uneducated person will speak differently in the same register - casual, formal, somewhere in between, whatever.

There are Harvard, Yale, etc., grads who will use "pwn" or "lol" or whatever else, but they still know "to" from "too" and "there" from "they're" from "their". And nobody thinks it's funny or "buddy-buddy" to mix them up.

Giga_Gaia · Mar 21, 2008, 01:10 AM // 01:10

Elitist PvPer's who ruin the game for everyone else with their endless QQing until the nerbat comes out. I play both myself but damn, these constant updates are getting pretty damn annoying.

Zahr Dalsk · Mar 21, 2008, 01:19 AM // 01:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Giga_Gaia

Elitist PvPer's who ruin the game for everyone else with their endless QQing until the nerbat comes out. I play both myself but damn, these constant updates are getting pretty damn annoying.

Ok, I normally take the PvE side of this since I have no PvP guild to do high-end PvP with these days, but really, PvE has just as many elitists, if not more.

Queenie · Mar 21, 2008, 01:21 AM // 01:21

Random person who'll just run up to you and /rank.

Zahr Dalsk · Mar 21, 2008, 01:22 AM // 01:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Queen Christie

Random person who'll just run up to you and /rank.

QFT. They deserve account deletion.

Dallcingi · Mar 21, 2008, 02:17 AM // 02:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zahr Dalsk

QFT. They deserve account deletion.

okay why did anet implement /rank then lol

to use... yah.

samcobra · Mar 21, 2008, 02:26 AM // 02:26

I hate bad people who think they're good

Tearz1993 · Mar 21, 2008, 02:43 AM // 02:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zahr Dalsk

"OMG I r teh awsome at dis" does not count as an alternate or evolved form of language. You will never get a job with a resume using such spelling. Many interviewers will generally just toss a resume into the garbage at the first sign of crude spelling or grammar. I've got your 'language is changing all the time' right here.

Honestly, nobody talks like that so stop talking. Also, as a previous post said, "correct" grammar is often used to show "superiority", but all I get from your post is that you actually think people act the same way in a game as they do in real life?

If you're even going to use an example like that as to how the person is in real life think before you type... or better yet don't type at all.

kokuou · Mar 21, 2008, 03:00 AM // 03:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Usurp

As a fellow linguist, I disagree with you on some points.

Grammar - The system of inflections, syntax, and word formation of a language.

Grammar is about more than simply syntactic structure. Of course it is unreasonable to expect people to use formal rules of composition in the forums of topic. However, your analogy comparing the use a basic grammatical rules to speaking in an elevated style to your friends is not valid. It is more like saying "Hey...let's go grab a bite" instead of "Yo...noob...we're gonna go pwn some burgers and then we'll brb." Both are acceptable in casual conversation, but will give you a different opinion of the person who is speaking. People are, and have historically been, judged by how they present themselves. Communication is a large contributor to this image.

I gather from your synopsis of the issue that you are a student of the post-modern school of thought. Reading your post reminded me of sitting in university education classes where I was forced to listen to claims that AAVE is a valid language. It is a fact that all languages are continuously evolving, be it minor gradual changes (the popularity of certain words growing/diminishing) or major changes (French/Latin influence introduced to English in 1066 AD by William's conquest). This does not excuse the complete pejoration of the language, and is more pertinent when analyzing the trends and events of the sort mentioned above. If I am "labeled strange" for adhering to basic linguistic rules...then so be it. As soon as we excuse and accept this type of bastardization, then that is when it becomes acceptable. This, I will never do.

Good fortune.

I completely agree with your point about how judgements are made about how a person speaks. From a biological evolutionary perspective, it probably is programmed in us, either directly or indirectly, to make such judgements about people.

However, making judgements and discriminating are completely separate issues. Personally, I find it silly to simply omit vowels for speed and I prefer to type "you" instead of "u". However, I have many friends in game who do such things, and even if it were someone I didn't know and was just blabbering in All chat, I don't base my judgement concerning that person's intelligence on the orthographic representation of their discourse.

I find your example a little extreme, although I understand what you are saying. I was thinking a little more along the lines of a word like 'totally', as in "That's totally cool." You could say this to a friend, but you wouldn't say to an interviewer, "You should totally hire me" because of the sociolinguistic expectations of that particular setting. It would, on the other hand, be quite acceptable, at least in North American culture, to say something like, "I would very much like to work for your company and I hope you consider me as an acceptable candidate for employment." (Well, that may be somewhat verbose, but you get my drift.)

There's not a school of thought that I follow in particular, but as you describe, I definitely consider myself one of the more open-minded linguists. I'm not sure if I would classify AAVE as its own language (as it is heavily based on English), but I definitely do consider it a full-fledged dialect of English, with its own set of (albeit similar) syntactic and grammatical rules. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on the whole "bastardization" issue, as I simply see it as the evolution of language. The fact that language tends to converge towards simplicity (such as using 'to' for both 'to' and 'too') has been attested to in a wide variety of languages. It may seem wrong at first, but the more people that use it, the more accepted it becomes.

I admit, I do cringe when I see 'your' used for 'you're' in an official or professional publication, but I find it more interesting than anything when I see someone, who would otherwise be considered as perfectly literate and a follower of prescribed grammatical conventions, make that very mistake.

kokuou · Mar 21, 2008, 03:10 AM // 03:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Personette

Good point. Let me rephrase: there are right ways, and there are wrong ways.

Well, there are arbritary 'rules' set out long ago by scholars, but we won't go there. I'll simply say that some of those rules are borderline idiotic and I refuse to follow them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Personette

Also, did you know the phrase is supposed to be: "You've got another think coming"? I just found that out recently and now I'm sharing.

I actually just red an article a couple months ago about the same thing. It's true that the phrase originated as 'another think coming', but because so many people (in fact, probably the large, large majority) use 'thing', it's now also an accepted usage. This right here is language evolution in the raw! Isn't it exhilirating?! (I know, I'm a linguistics nerd.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Personette

Everybody speaks differently in different situations. But an educated person and an uneducated person will speak differently in the same register - casual, formal, somewhere in between, whatever.

There are Harvard, Yale, etc., grads who will use "pwn" or "lol" or whatever else, but they still know "to" from "too" and "there" from "they're" from "their". And nobody thinks it's funny or "buddy-buddy" to mix them up.

You're right about people using different registers, but people will also change their register to match those of their peers or a certain sociolinguistic setting.

As for the to/too and there/they're/their difference, all I can say is that, like I said in one of my above posts, this convergence towards simplification has been attested to in many different languages. Phonologically, they are the same, and since spoken language predates written language, it's not inconceivable to have one form for three words that have the exact same phological representation.
I'm not saying that we should just abandon those kind of distinctions; I'm just saying that the phenomenon isn't unique to English and has happened before, and I find it interesting above all else.

*lemming* · Mar 21, 2008, 08:36 AM // 08:36

I hate bad people who think they know what they're talking about.

Unreal Havoc · Mar 21, 2008, 11:22 AM // 11:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zahr Dalsk

"OMG I r teh awsome at dis" does not count as an alternate or evolved form of language. You will never get a job with a resume using such spelling. Many interviewers will generally just toss a resume into the garbage at the first sign of crude spelling or grammar. I've got your 'language is changing all the time' right here.

I didn't realise Guild Wars was a job interview. OMG Anets watching you!!!

Seriously though this debate is getting to be a joke. People will find simplified ways to type things because it makes the hassle of quick conversation in outposts, or while in an area fighting mobs... easier. It allows the game and conversations to flow faster. Sorry but there's no way I'm going to write an essay while I'm being whacked by level 20+ mobs. I'll get my message across as quickly as possible for the benefit of myself and my party, as long as you can understand it that's all that is important.