Web Slang, How and Why?

November 22, 2007 12:35 AM

Asking for my son: How and why did web abbreviation and web slang evolve the way it did? Was it just a matter of common acceptance, or was something bigger at work?

For instance: some people will type "ROFLMAO" meaning "Rolling On the Floor Laughing My Ass Off" but a more common expression is ROFL (Rolling On the Floor Laughing) or the most common LOL (Laughing Out Loud).

And, how did "owned" become "pwned"?

posted by amyms to computers & internet (11 answers total)

The Wikipedia entry for l33tspeak will answer the final part of your question.

The whole question requires a broader questioning of the process of evolution that any language goes through.

A grossly simplified answer would be that the original, largely academic web was controlled and populated by a relatively closed, largely male group who abbreviated naturally as a function of the way they interfaced with networks (i.e. on command-line driven academic systems). The speed and worldwide reach of the web allows such ideas (or memes to use the vernacular) to propogate far faster than they could by traditional person-to-person or printed dissemination.

There are other factors, such as the tribalism and drive to create peer groups that share common references and ideas, and want to communicate them quickly, but essentially it's just the processes that drive adoption of jargon and 'verbal shorthand' in any group of humans, just sped up and much larger.
posted by Happy Dave at 12:44 AM on November 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Thanks for that leetspeak link, Happy Dave. That helps a lot.
posted by amyms at 1:40 AM on November 22, 2007

From my own experience, a lot of the abbreviations arose as a direct result of the slow baud rate modems that were in use.

This had a two-fold impact - (a) when chatting to someone else (e.g. a sysop) you're typing in real time whilst the 'phone line is in use - brevity = quicker "conversations" = smaller 'phone bill, and (b) e-mails used to be sent by a point-to-point method where different BBSs would pass on bundles of mail to the next BBS in the chain, and extract out any messages for people on their own hub; long e-mails were frowned upon a lot, as larger mails = bigger mailfiles = more cost for the BBSs that operate the mail network.

This is related but subtly different to the 1337-speak that we're now more familiar with.
posted by Chunder at 2:24 AM on November 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

The New Hacker's Dictionary covers a lot of this.
posted by futility closet at 3:58 AM on November 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is hardly unique. Remember "10-4, good buddy" from the 1970's CB craze? This kind of stuff comes and goes. Usually a bit of it becomes part of the standard lexicon and the rest passes like yesterday's fashions.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 5:36 AM on November 22, 2007

Slang serves as an in-group marker, which is how it gets reinforced. People pick it up because it makes them seem "in" a group that they want to be a part of, and because mastery actually makes them more accepted in that group. It is a way of saying to others that you have shared a lot of experience with them. In addition to the Leet Wikipedia article, the one on shibboleths may be useful.

Most computer slang comes from:

1) Hackers, especially at universities (particularly, early terms, many of which are still used today, such as "kludge")
2) Pirates and crackers (not the same as hackers)
3) Gamers
4) Most recently, Internet communities

There has also been a fair amount of crossover from science fiction fandom, because many nerds are SF fans (and they do tend to be SF, not sci-fi, fans -- knowing the difference between SF and sci-fi is an in-group marker for that subculture). "Grok" is an old word from that fandom that has found widespread acceptance in computer cultures.
posted by kindall at 8:42 AM on November 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

A lot of the abbreviations seem to have evolved naturally from the type of shorthand you have to use when you are playing games online. Way before you could talk to eachother using built-in mics, you had to type any commands or comments. In order to do so quickly, so that you wouldn't get killed while typing, that's where most of my normal abbreviations come from. There is also the sms speak, where abbreviations come about because of the limited number of characters available to you in an sms.
posted by gemmy at 10:36 AM on November 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

You can go back even father with telegraph codes, which were also used to save time/money.
posted by user92371 at 12:00 PM on November 22, 2007

I don't know the answer to your question, but to me it seems as simple as that people start out as slow typists, so they abbreviate as much as possible.

This definitely predates the Web. A lot of today's slang is the same we used in the BBS days, and I assume most of that came out of usenet and IRC and such.

'pwned' started out as 'owned', but the letter 'p' is right next to the letter 'o', and when you're busy fragging n00bs you might accidentally hit the wrong key by mistake.
posted by Hildago at 12:29 PM on November 22, 2007

Thanks to everyone who answered, and especially for the interesting links!
posted by amyms at 6:44 PM on November 22, 2007

This definitely predates the Web. A lot of today's slang is the same we used in the BBS days, and I assume most of that came out of usenet and IRC and such.

Quoted for truth, representing Those Who Remember BBSs. [grin]
posted by desuetude at 12:42 PM on November 23, 2007