‘Because Internet’ Review: How We Talk Online

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From The Wall Street Journal:

What do you say on the internet when there’s no one to hear you scream? If you’re a digital native you might keysmash “asdjkhjf;lfdl;k” or use an unpronounceable emoticon when there are no words to convey quite what you’re feeling. But if you’re part of the dwindling population of people for whom internet life remains alien, such weird, wordless linguistic innovations might render you speechless and possibly a little panicked.

The internet is the big linguistic disruption of our time, changing the way we communicate at dizzying speeds. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? As the linguist Gretchen McCulloch argues in her book “Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language,” it’s just a thing (as the internet would say). Language has always changed to meet our needs. The “boundless creativity of internet language,” in fact, is evidence of how online text is moving from a dry and rule-bound writing technology to inventively spontaneous digital speech, as we chat with our friends across great distances, with all the feels.

Even the way online text looks, Ms. McCulloch observes, has acquired new social significance. Something as innocuous as punctuation can change how a message affects us. Text written in all caps now conveys shouting and emphasis, something we might not want to overdo. Too few exclamation points in a message makes for an unenthusiastic response. Too many starts to seem insincere. It can be hard to wrap your head around what these conventions mean if you don’t live on the internet. Ms. McCulloch aims to guide readers through the mire and makes a linguist’s case, essentially, not to panic.

Link to the rest at The Wall Street Journal (Sorry if you encounter a paywall)

 

2 thoughts on “‘Because Internet’ Review: How We Talk Online”

  1. “It can be hard to wrap your head around what these conventions mean if you don’t live on the internet.”

    Wrong, if you don’t live on ‘that’ part/type/group of the internet …

    Like everything else they can’t write anything covering how to talk on ‘the internet’ – there are too many different groups each talking their own way.

    Take this site, nice and calm for the most point and then try to compare it to any other site you go to. In many cases you’ll find what constitutes as ‘normal’ for this site.

    MYMV and you know or quickly learn the language of the natives. 😉

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