\section{Linguistic Specialities of Internet Slang}\label{sec:linguistic} This section is going to deal with the linguistic specialities that have developed on the inernet during the last years. In each subsection I'll present one or more examples of a certain kind of speciality and explain how it developed and how such specialities develop in general. \subsection{Metaphors}\label{sec:linguistic:metaphors} \subsubsection{Tools and Applications}\label{sec:linguistic:tools} Metaphors are naturally composed of things someone knows. Especially in the early days of the Internet one thing most of its users were very familiar with was the system on their computer. This is partly due to the fact that many of the Internets users in the early days were the people who had worked on developing it, while the rest of the user base had to be tech savvy to be able to use it\footnote{This statement makes yet more sense if you consider that even today getting an Internet connection to work isn't exactly simple.}. This lead to the creation of some metaphors that refer to computer programs. One of the most famous is ``fsck''. fsck is originally a program that is found on most Unix-derivatives\footnote{Unix is a rather old operating system. It's name is also used to refer to operating systems that use similar concepts, so called Unix-derivatives. One Unix-like operating system that is still in use is Linux. (\cite{ewp:Unix})}. Its name is the abbreviation of ``File System Consistency Check'' (\cite{ewp:fsck}). It does just what it's name suggests. It checks the file systems\footnote{The structure a computer uses to store files on the hard-disk.} consistency. There are two different meanings of fsck if it is used as a metaphor. They are both referring to its function. The first meaning is plainly ``check'' (\cite{ewp:fsck}, \cite{ud:fsck}), following a very simple train of thought. After all this is just what the program does. The second meaning is a bit more complicated to explain. If one has to use fsck in most cases something has happened to the file system. This shouldn't ever happen at all, if it does you ``are having a bad day'' (\cite{jargon}). Another aspect is, that fsck has a certain similarity to the word fuck. The combination of those facts lead to its rise as a profanity which is/can not be filtered in most places\footnote{Of course it is technically possible to filter it, but especially on Unix-centric chats it is not feasible to do so.} . Most metaphors based on programs seem to be made up in a very similar way. They are based on the function the program has. A simpler example is grep, a tool which searches for a string in files. If someone says he is ``greping through something'' this means, that he is looking through data trying to find something (\cite{jargon}). \subsubsection{Real World}\label{sec:linguistic:realWorld} There are only very few metaphors referring to things in the real world in Internet slang. In my opinion this is not surprising, because most such terms can also occur to someone not using the Internet at all. Still there are a few. One very wide spread is ``Easter Egg''. This term is used to refer to hidden ``features'' in software. These ``features'' can range from sentences that are contained within an executable, without interfering with its function to dialogue-boxes that pop up when the user clicks somewhere special, or enters a certain key sequence (\cite{jargon}). The analogy to real Easter eggs is obvious. Both are hidden, but meant to be found. As there are only few examples of this kind of metaphor it is hard to say something general about them. They seem to emerge when something technical resembles something in the real world very closely, so that many people will associate both. \subsubsection{Military}\label{sec:linguistic:military} While it is not always obvious whether this is true, some expressions in Internet slang are said to have originated in military slang. One expression where it is evident that it originated in military slang is foobar. ``Foobar'' is often used split in the parts ``foo'' and ``bar'' as example names for about anything in a lot of computer centric documentation (\cite{rfc:foo}). According to \cite{rfc:foo} and \cite{jargon} it originated in the World War II expression FUBAR, which was the abbreviation of ``Fucked Up Beyond All Repair''. While it was originally thought that the replacement of ``u'' with ``oo'' was the result of applying leet (\ref{sec:linguistic:leet}) to FUBAR, recent theories say that the original form might have been foobar and became fubar when people learnt about the German word ``furchtbar''. This theories are based on the fact that the words foo and bar have been used in comic strips appearing before the war started (\cite{rfc:foo}). Security related terms have a certain tendency towards militancy, too. Different kinds of attacks (which is arguably a military word itself) against computer systems have ``bomb'' as a part of there name (e.g.\ forkbomb, logic bomb). \cite{jargon} also notes that bomb can be used synonymously to crash. There are no solid facts on how this terms were introduced in Internet slang. It might be the fact that the army is interested in the Internet, because it is an information source and a communication channel. Or it might just be the fact that ``boys'' like to play war. Both are just guesses though, which may or may not be completely off. \subsection{Emotions}\label{sec:linguistic:emotions} One of the things hardest to express when you only have text to communicate\footnote{This sounds even worse if you keep in mind that this text consists of characters that consist of 8 or 16 bits that are merely ones and zeros} are emotions. There is no face you can smile or cry with and no hands to gesticulate with. People have found different ways to circumvent this restrictions. \subsubsection{Naming actions}\label{sec:linguistic:emotions:naming} One thing that is done fairly often is just naming what you are doing and putting it between asterisks (e.g.\ *grin*, *waves*). Sometimes such expressions can also be found without asterisks. ``lol'' (abbreviation for laughing out loud, but currently misused for any kind of laughter) and other abbreviated expressions can almost always be seen without asterisks. A variation of this can be found on IRC. If someone types ``/me waves'' in IRC everyone else will see ``*user-name waves''. Sometimes /me is also used in environments where it is not substituted automatically. The person reading it is supposed to know what it means and do the expansion in his head (\cite{jargon}). Sometimes people also write out the sound their reaction to some statement makes. This is what you might also find in any book. For instance one might says ``ha ha ha'' instead of ``I laugh'' or ``/me laughs''. \subsubsection{Emoticons}\label{sec:linguistic:emotions:emotes} Another way of expressing emotions are so called ``emoticons''. These are small pieces of ASCII art\footnote{Pictures consisting of the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII standard (\cite{ewp:aa})}. They are always on only one line and usually two to five characters wide (\cite{ewp:emoticon}). Examples are: ;) (hinting irony) or \textgreater:-O (angry/yelling). Some common emoticons include (this table is loosely based on \cite{ewp:emoticon} and what I have personally seen): \begin{center} \begin{tabular}[ht]{|l|l|} \hline :) & Smiling, Happy\\ ;) & Wink, hinting irony\\ :( & Sad\\ :D & Laughing, Wide grin\\ B) & Wearing sunglasses, indicated pride in something\\ \textless3 & Heart, often used as ``I \textless3 you''\\ \textless/3 & Broken heart\\ \hline \end{tabular} \end{center} \subsection{Writing Style}\label{sec:linguistic:grammar} Especially those with a technical background have developed a style of writing that is based on programming and markup languages. Constructs used most often are taken from the C programming language and the Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). The following paragraph shows some commented examples of such usage. Note that the comments themselves are part of the examples, because they are marked as they would be specified in the respective language. The examples are loosely based on the ``Hacker Writing Style'' section in \cite{jargon}. \begin{verbatim} /* The following is based on C syntax. * '#ifdef' and 'if' are both statements that evaluate * an expression and interpret everything between * '#ifdef' and '#endif' or '{' and '}' if the expression * is true. * #include includes the content of the specified file */ #ifdef FLAME Yeah I know tracker is fscking fast and nice and C and ultra cool, but what use is that if it can't index most of my stuff man. Beagle FTW!!! #endif /* FLAME */ if (nicePerson = true) { Have a nice day } #incude "signature.h" Yes I really like the state watching my back as close as possible, maybe they'll find a tick or a fly. \end{verbatim} \subsection{Leetspeak}\label{sec:linguistic:leet} Leetspeak (also leet, 1337, 1337speak or other combinations thereof) is a style of writing, where characters are replaced with other characters which either look similar or sound similar to the original ones. Some quite common substitutions include: \begin{center} \begin{tabular}[ht]{|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|l|} \hline A, a & E, e & S, s & T, t & L, l & eye & see & you & why\\ \hline 4 & 3 & 5 & 7 & 1 & I & C & U & Y\\ \hline \end{tabular} \end{center} The term leet itself is derived from the word elite and is used to refer to something that ``deserves'' this attribute (\cite{ewp:leet}). Since it has been overused by some people (often to refer to themselves) it is generally used in an ironic sense now. Leetspeak was originally used to bypass word filters, but it now is also used to annoy people, resp. make it hard for them to understand what you are saying (\cite{ewp:leet}). Some people also used it to avoid being found by search engines in the past, but there are more effective ways to be ignored by web crawlers\footnote{A program that collects information for search engines} today. Recently it has been used in spam mails\footnote{Mails containing unwanted content, mainly advertisements}, which try to circumvent spam filters this way. Leetspeak has gained some popularity through it's use in games (many shooters have artificial intelligences that speak leet), movies (e.g.\ Se7en, L4Yer CAK3), album and song names (e.g.\ Linkin Park - PLC. 4 Mie Haed) and web-comics (e.g.\ Megatokyo strip 09\footnote{\url{http://www.megatokyo.com/index.php?strip_id=9}}) (\cite{ewp:leet}). \subsection{Abbreviations} Abbreviations are something very common in Internet slang. Based on what people have told me and personal experience this seems to have two main reasons. On the one hand most people are lazy, on the other hand most people can't type very fast and are therefore happy for every letter they don't need to type. Very wide spread abbreviations are those used to express emotions (\ref{sec:linguistic:emotions}). Examples include: \begin{itemize} \item LOL for Laughing Out Loud \item ROFL for Rolling On the Floor Laughing \item LMAO for Laughing My Ass Off \item OM(F)G for Oh My (Fucking) Good \item WTF for What The Fuck \end{itemize} Most other abbreviations abbreviate phrases that are used very often. One of them is (sadly) RTFM, which is short for Read The Fucking Manual, which is mostly said to people who ask questions they could have answered themselves with a small amount of research (\cite{ewp:rtfm}). One reason it might be easy to find could be that it was a FAQ, which is the abbreviation of Frequently Asked Question. FAQs\footnote{Collections of frequently asked questions} are a phenomenon of their own. Both concept and name originated on the Usenet (\ref{sec:where:usenet}) and got popular there (\cite{ewp:faq}).