Internet slang, and the effect it has had on traditional language Essay

Internet slang, and the effect it has had on traditional language - Essay Example ranca (Vosloo, 2009), not only replacing English and other languages during electronic interactions, but also invading the everyday speech among them. Netspeak or internet slang has been defined by McFedries as â€Å"the words, idioms and peculiarities of spelling and grammar that are characteristic of online documents and communications.† It began as Instant Messaging Services like AOL, MSN and Yahoo magnetized millions of users that constantly sought to find efficient, shorter and faster ways of interaction, with limited characters on the keyboard determining the linguistic capacity (Shaw, c.2004). The outcome was sentences and phrases abbreviated into words and replacement of characters with others that resemble them for convenience of typing. This led to coining of a synonymous term, ‘leet’, which is a shortened term used for elite and is also written as 1337, similar characters as implied by the definition. Some of the most common ‘words’ are LOL, an acronym for ‘laughing out loud’, and ‘BARB’, which is a shortened version of ‘be right back.’ The knowledg e of Netspeak is now crucial to understanding any conversation that takes place over internet messaging. Another distinguishing aspect of Netspeak is the coinage and use of emoticons or graphical smileys, used to convey emotions and intentions like happiness and anger. As obvious, the reason for hostility against it by intellectuals is random and erroneous use of spellings- often called creative spellings, - grammar and punctuations by users, since it is informal and free of such constraints. This could be explicitly explained by the example, ‘practice b4 u go, k?’ The effects of internet slang on writings have been well-noticed and criticized by teachers and parents alike, with students also admitting its drawbacks. Lee describes them as constant attacks of technology on formal written English (cited in Vosloo, 2009), while Humphry compares its brunt on grammar, punctuations and