h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry couldn't resist.

'kay Top. I'll take my rantings elsewhere. Have a good rage.

Heh. That wasn't specifically aimed at you, Acid. That was more toward the people who were getting all "Let's be friends, love makes the world go round etc. etc."

As an aside, I've just had a brief look into another thread which I will not name here. It was aimed at a certain group of people, many of whom use the txtspk lingo, and who live in their own elitist society.

(Flaming from certain parties aimed at the character of these people aside) The thread soon devolved from a logical conversation to a mass of "HI! howru 2nite LOL ur so kewl" and the like. Well off topic (which was incidentally asking whether there was an actual plan for the mass exodus of these people to Hootoo, or whether it was an accident that they all ended up here).

That is what I dislike, because then, they got to the point that most of the posts were unintelligible to those 'not in the know'. A genuine question thread was hijacked into an unintelligible clique-fest, chatting about 'wat ur gonig 2 du 2nite'.

Hence just one of the sources for my particular dislike of the typing style (I've seen it elsewhere before).

God damn that extraneous parenthesis. I don't even know how it got there, given it's at the top of the keyboard and the full stop is at the bottom!

Hey. I wasn't flaming. I was taken out of context when correctly assigning blame.



Anyway, more of the anti-hippy stance please TopHat. I agree completely.

Flaming is in the eye of the beholder. I was including the others, though, when they started yelling at you, Sat.

And to go back a few posts, to something else that was said - Abbreviations are one thing. They're, we're, it's - They've made the language easier to understand. They've contracted sometimes unweildy words, and given us something that's easier to comprehend, without having to go "That Is The Best Thing That They Have Ever Done. It Is...etc. etc." The problem arises when the contractions become extraneous.

As I said, the postings in the other thread (You all can find it yourself if you want to really know. I'm not going to point fingers), quickly dissolved into a mass of nigh-unintelligible, cliquish greetings and backpatting 'o dont u wory shes a idiot ur smrt thyr not' rubbish. Very few even tried to answer the first question until well into the thread.

Actually, if we want to be precise, I am a "plonk", a stupid little girl, someone who will be very lonely, and a squashed grapefruit has more life than I do.



If that doesn't prove my point, I don't know what does. But anyway.

I just want people to use the English Language correctly. Whhhyyyy is it so hard?

saturnine

i wont reply to your personal comment aimed at me.

the only thing i will say is if it makes people happy i will start using the apostrophes n punctuation but i'm arfraid it would take me too long to change my abbreviations. i like them n thats part of my individualism.

you don't come across as stupid to me just someone who has apoint to make regardless whether i or anyone else likes it. you've seen some of my postings i speak my mind. i went far too long in life being a walkover so perhaps i've gone from one extreme to another.

its a shame that everyone doesn't get along when its only a few abbreviations. if your problem is the txtspeak then i'll agree with you but personally i wouldn't stop reading someones posts just cus of the way they write (unless its caps all over the place

teasswill

i'm glad you recognised i'm willing to make a compromise here so that's good. maybe it will please you even more if i use apostrophes even a smiley or two LOL

it does look as if there's alot of work to be done before leisuredistrict users are fully accepted as equal members here. yeah i can understand people getting upset when the site they use is suddenly bombarded with a new influx of people who write in a manner that you don't like. but i will say this tho....if h2g2 shut down n for some reason everyone came into using leisuredistrict i can hand on heart say everyone would be made to feel welcome specially in the library where alot of people made good viewpoints. personally i didn't use chat much. preferred messaging which is like this n the library. thats where my happy memories lie. hopefully i'll gain as many happy memories on this site.

Diddy!

>Actually, if we want to be precise, I am a "plonk", a stupid little , someone who will be very lonely, and a squashed grapefruit has more life than I do.<

And i have been told by an established h2g2er [waves to Al*c] that i am sharing one brain cell with my fellow ex-LDers...

The difference with the comments made in the other thread being that Al*c's one was not provocked....



>If that doesn't prove my point, I don't know what does.<



Err... nope Saturnine, that doesn't prove your point at all... All it proves is that posting an insulting remark about a group of users on h2g2 is usually bound to be followed by some heated replies... It would have been the same if an insulting comment regarding women/men/foreigners/etc had be posted...

So it's not _really_ fair coming back on here after that and say "oh look.. see???? i was right!!!!!"

I will go to the other thread and post a few replies anyway... As we have been rightly reminded this thread was _supposed_ to deal with txtspk... And it would have been dealing with that sole subject if one specific [and named] group of users had not been _uncorrectly_ stereotyped in it...



loup

This post has been removed.

alec

i find your comments absolutely disgraceful coming from a sposed established h2g2er. you seem such an angry person i actually feel sorry for you.

it was actually me that started sticking up for people who use a different style of writing n loup voluntarily joined in as soon as saturnine starting slating Ld'ers. before that people were starting to get on n compromising.

i dont believe loup has ever called anyone personal names can you give me evidence of this?

n as for using words that have look french (bolleaux) well thats completely out of order.

im afraid you're alienating yourself on this cus i cant see anyone will agree with anything you say. at least when me n loup post we say it in a way that people can read n not offensive.

such a pity that you cannot direct your arguement in a positive fashion. thank god (n im not religious at all) that most h2g2'ers are not the same as you cus i can tell you this there wouldn't be that many people left - established h2g2'ers or Ld'ers

Please can we finish this arguement? it was sposed to be about txtspk which most of us are happy to keep to.

Diddy!

saturnine
You owe me(us) nothing.
Those of us who use a digi-box do so because we may not have the luxury of being "rich" or a "snob" and have "friends" to help out with buying a pc.

Some of us >and here im not defending myself or others< prefer to use the instrument we have. As for Telewest users being "HACKERS" well so what?

Ive been a member of this site for a while now and I have to admit that your the first person Ive encountered that isnt nice. Ive spoken to many on here and they have all be polite.

Oh and your NOT God,, I know GOD and He sure isnt you,lol

I thought when I looked into this thread I was going to contribute to the txt language debate, but instead I arrive to find you slagging exLD people,,Did you not know that there are a great deal od exLDers on this site AND they are quite intelligent ppl,,

Your remark about us being "the dregs" really offended me and im sure it upset others, So much so that I was pries(keyboard lock, wont change it)site,but im braver than that, I have made some contributions to this site and yes I also use it to chat,,, ISNT THAT WHAT YOUR DOING NOW?

I hope that when you grow up you have a better torerance for people than you do right now.

To return to the subject this thread was set up for,,,
I dont use to much txt speak mainly cus I dont understand it On the other hand I do use some abrevs,, This is usualy due to the interactive, when its running slow the less words you use the better,
A happy medium is to use both, it seems to be the fashion to do that at the moment,

JUST ME

Getting back to the point, the main reason why people don't like txtspk is because a language can be used to drive wedges between people just as effectively as it can bring people together. Rather like those nice people in North Wales who normally converse in English but switch to Welsh as soon as someone walks into their Local Shop for Local People. So in this case it allows the young people to differentiate themselves from the older generation, not least because they can use the technology more effectively.

It also gives the users of the language a stake in how the language itself evolves. My sole contribution to the English language is the phrase 'from the horse's arse', meaning obtaining information third or fourth-hand and mangled well beyond its original import. I'd like to think that people will use it, but I know that if I deliberately wanted to introduce neologisms with much more success I'd use a mobile phone. Although I think I'd better buy one first.

actually when i started reading the first few postings on this thread i couldn't understand the txt spk! i don't use that even in txts! i haven't had the chance to go to the l33t entry yet but i will do cus i don't know what it means!

so maybe i never did use txt spk originally when i came in this site but just shortened a few words here or there.

i agree with most of you when you say you don't like words without the vowels in. it DOES look a mess n YES there's no place for it here (unless its in a priv thread between consenting people, hmmmm sounds good anyway i think i might join in after all LOL)

Diddy!

"the main reason why people don't like txtspk is because a language can be used to drive wedges between people just as effectively as it can bring people together" - absolutely! To put it another way, the main reason I don't like it is because I find it more difficult to follow than plain English, and if it becomes too much of an effort to translate it I don't bother, and I'm therefore excluded from the conversation.

All I'd ask of people who are posting in a public discussion like this one is that they try to communicate clearly. That doesn't have to mean perfect spelling or grammar or 100% accurate typing - not everybody can manage that (I know I can't) and to insist on it could exclude people who are dyslexic or for whom English is not a first language. I don't want to exclude anybody. Nor does it mean no abbreviations - there's nothing wrong with abbreviations if they're clear.

If some people have equipment that makes typing a challenge, or if they're not good at spelling (which is very common and is not related to intelligence or education in my view) or if they're just a lousy typist - I have no problem with that. I can manage with idiosyncratic spelling, punctuation, capitalization and grammar - just so long as people are typing in reasonably intelligible English. I'm a product of my education, and I try to type in correct English (except when I'm making a deliberate point, say when I'm trying to portray a regional accent) but I don't expect others to feel the same way - I do however want to understand what they are saying to me.

What it does mean is that I feel people ought not to post in any kind of code that you couldn't reasonably expect a majority of the audience to understand, or if they do, they should explain what they are saying. There are times here on h2g2 when whole threads are constructed in, well, not-English - there was a thread in Bubblish (I never could be bothered with that) and another in Franglais - that's fine too, you either want to join in or you don't - it's public discussions I am concerned about, and my concern is that as far as possible people should not be unnecessarily excluded.

I don't think this demeans text speak, or jargon, or slang, or anybody else's language - they're all good in the right place, and the right place can be here. Communicating in such a way that the people you are communicating with can understand you is just simple politeness.

I don't know what your postings looked like before, Diddy, but I don't have any problem understanding what you've said in this thread. To me, that's the most important thing - we can only debate this, or anything else, if we can understand each other.

What really looks a mess to me is random capitals - it just makes it hard to follow when people sprinkle them around for effect - it just disturbs the way your eye follows the text.

captain kebab

i think everyone agrees with the capitalizations. i'm not sure where that started but from what i can remember on leisuredistrict is in the library we had different sections. politics, sports, romance etc etc. in the music section the people who used the capitalizations were the ones who liked koRn the band. so it might have originated from that. i think people who liked the band n saw the capital letter in the middle of the word n thought it looked good.

i might be completely wrong here but that's what i remember anyway.

so it came from koRn lovers!
personally i prefer real meat! (no even i didn't laugh at that one LOL)

Diddy!

"so it came from koRn lovers! personally i prefer real meat!" Aaargghh! I understood that all right.

That's the corniest joke I've heard in ages.

Well, you started it.

LOL

at least a bit of a laugh on this thread!

something it needed i think!

i'm bound to go away n think of something completely idiotic to post regarding koRn!

my brain isn't working quite well yet!

Diddy!