Internet Dialect

[sorcyress]

How do you exist in the internet?

See, I was just posting a comment over in helionaut's journal, and I quoted something he said, as I often do. When I quote people in comments, I always put their words in italics. See here.

However, when I quote people in chats, I use quotes. What do you use?

***

When I chat and when I'm in livejournal, I use asterixes to bracket my actions. If I want to hug someone, I just say *hugs*. My mom was brought up with the concept of ::hugs::, which at least one other person I know -drummer dude- uses, and OtherKat tends to do a lot of /me hugs.

What do you use?

[Poll #1080191]

On a similar note, the phrase "Internet Dialect" is pretty much awesome. What other things can you guys think of that fall under the catagory of internet dialects? Is lolkitty a dialect, or a whole language to itself?

~Sor
MOOP!

*On an unrelated note, how do you space out your posts? When I swap from one topic to another, I use astricies --three if I'm making a lot of quick notes on life, thirteen if I'm doing something trickier.

Comments

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Here

I quoted something he said, as I often do.

Wow! I often do that too!!

~Sor

[miriampenguin.livejournal.com]

I checked /me hugs [which if you didn't know, has its roots in IRC] and *hugs*. However, I have in the past used ::hugs:: when it was the convention in a particular social circle to do so.

[drama-angel3189.livejournal.com]

I believe that they have declare that lolkitty (at least on I can has a cheeseburger) is is called either kitty pidgin or LOL kitteh.

[artemisfowl2nd.livejournal.com]

Depending on the quote in question I either italicize or throw quotes around it. Mostly depending on length.

The '/me hugs' vs. '*hugs*' thing depends on where I am. For instance, dA usually gets the asterisks, Trillian gets the IRCspeak.

And I doublereturn to space my posts out, usually to signal the end of a thought pattern. I do it in stories, too, and usually have to edit most of them out.

[leiacat.livejournal.com]

I've mostly broken myself of the IRC-based /me habit in asynchronous media (in places where I post rather than chat). Most of my chat habitats are /me-enabled, although in AIM I'm still more likely to **, as I do here.

[dodger77.livejournal.com]

I almost exclusively use **'s. Several years ago I was sort of involved in a chat RPish game type thing, and the convention there was :: ::, but I much prefer asterisks. If I'm in a chat with a built in emote command, I'll use that though.

As for new thoughts, I usually just separate them with a blank line.

[lunaticvermin.livejournal.com]

The word for lolkitty is not dialect it's 'mindless, supremely annoying gibberish.'

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

I used to ::do it this way:: now I *do it this way.*

[thorog.livejournal.com]

Grey uses :hugs because she spent a long time on a MU* at some point. On most MU*s, you use ", : and ; to say or pose, as follows:

>"Hello!
Thorog says, "Hello!"
>:preens
Thorog preens
>;watch blinks 12:00
Thorog's watch blinks 12:00

My usage of *hugs* or /me hugs depends on the medium - IRC vs. IM. Thankfully, Adium converts "/me actions" to "*actions*" for the few times I slip up.

Also, your first hyperlink is broken - it should link to http://kdsorceress.livejournal.com/237755.html#1, as people viewing your post in friends view won't get the link working (#1 just tells it to go to "the anchor named "1" on this page).

Thoughts should go into separate paragraphs - the idea of a paragraph is to group thoughts on a topic or related information. Of course, it's possible to go through several paragraphs on the same idea and then skip to a new one. I generally continue with the same pattern and indicate in the writing that it's a new idea. I reserve the triple-asterisk for scene changes or to irk Fictional!Katters (http://akchizar.deviantart.com/art/KZaT-3-5-64823957).

Internet dialects* tend to be slang rather than actual dialect, although terminology could technically be classed as jargon. I would technically class lolcat as pidgin, since it's really a corruption of English - the words are pretty much the same, but the grammar structure has changed.

--
*Dialect comes from the Greek "dialektos", meaning "way of speaking". It has the same roots as "dialogue". Since 'net dialects almost exclusively deal with writing, they should perhaps be correlects, since correspondence is the closest written analogue I can think of to dialogue.

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

I do the double-colon thing too sometimes. Hugs not so much as other things, especially ::shrug::.

[swingerzetta.livejournal.com]

I'd say leetspeak, aolspeak, lolcatspeak, and just plain lazy typing could all count as internet dialects. I also tend to think that the dialect one uses is a direct reflection of their mental age.

[heptadecagram.livejournal.com]

I use !hugs! when I'm sending a message from my phone, since the asterisk is way too hard to find. Otherwise, I use *hugs*.

---

When I'm switching context in a post, I use a "horizontal rule" like the one above. Just type <hr>.

[werewulf.livejournal.com]

Actually I was brought up with single colon :hugs you. In Islandia and other MUDs the colon was then replaced on other people's screens with "Werewulf hugs you."

love,
your,
Mom

[dhs.livejournal.com]

I use *hug*, but I'll accept any of them. :-)

If I'm planning a different enough topic, I'll start a new journal entry. Sometimes I just flow-of-consciousness from one topic to another.

[marcmagus]

((ARGH, forgot about the pseudo-HTML. Here's another old AOL convention; double-parens for Out-of-Character conversation. Next time perhaps I'll remember to Preview.))

I use a mix of :: :: and * *, but in a different way than you describe:

* * surrounds things which could be issued as a command in an M**. This indicates that I am performing the associated action; in a two-person medium such as IM or email, or when context makes it obvious, I will often leave out any target for the action as assumed to be the person to whom I am talking. The M** would, of course, handle pronoun substitution appropriately so anybody saw something which made sense; the reader is expected to be able to handle this on their own. Thus:

*hug* = "<marcmagus> hug<s> <kdsorceress>." (With names replaced with "you" as appropriate and hugs conjugated to match.)
*wink* = "<marcmagus> wink<s>"

I will *not*, however, say *hugs* -- that reads to me as, basically, "I hugses you."

I do use a couple of more obscure commands from the MUD I used most:
*thug* = "hugs <target> tightly"
*mgrin* = "grins mischievously"

On the very rare occasions that I think it's necessary to specify a target, I'll either include it in the asterisks (*thug kdsorceress*) or, more likely, switch to the :: :: form.

For more complicated emotes, I use the :: :: style which was popular on AOL in the early-to-mid-nineties, particularly in the RDI. I don't know it's history before that. This should be read identically to the emote (:) command or to a /me; insert my name before anything enclosed in the :: :: and read it as you would a stage direction or non-quoted text in a novel. Since I typically used this in multiuser chat, I tend to prefer spelling out a username to leaving it assumed or using the word "you". Basically, it should make sense from a third-person narratorial perspective as described above.

::hugs kdsorceress::
::fears he may have gone on at too much length here::

(Note that I often leave off the terminal '.' here, where I include it in /me or actual emotes; an odd style detail, I guess.)

[stgreyhounds.livejournal.com]

I used to use but too many places mistake that for html, so for a long time it's been [hugs].

[stgreyhounds.livejournal.com]

Case in point. The above should have read "I used to use < hugs >" except without the spaces.