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Author Topic: Gamers Grammar
Dr Strangelove
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Just a random thought ... How much does gaming affect grammar and punctuation habits? A few of my friends are 'gamers', and they all tend to have the same writing style, at least in casual writing. Casual writing such as posting on a forum. I got to wondering whether the type of people who write in this certain manner tend to be gamers, of if gamers tend to start writing in this certain manner. Has anyone else noticed a pattern in gamers grammar? Are there any gamers out there who pride themselves on having impeccable grammar?

To clarify, I'm talking about the lack of capitals, apostrophes, commas, and coherency.

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BlackBlade
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I think any sort of medium where you communicate via typing will inadvertantly effect how you write in casual conversation. Its one of the problems with instant messaging, it dumbs down the language in order to increase speed.

The gaming community has become massive, but everyone knows that. I play WOW and that alone carries its own massive list of acronyms, shortened words and phrases, and even its own idioms/sayings, "The tears of the noob are infinite."

As for being able to lay out where that all effects my writing style is hard for me to articulate. I have found that as a general rule, most gamers are impatient. If you have a complex topic that requires extended reading, (like 5-10 minutes) its often responded to with, (TLDR) "To Long Didnt Read." Ill slit my wrists if anybody responds to this post with those 4 letters.

A common response to this is alot of gamers writing is straight, and to the point. Especially while playing WOW I have found that I spend as much time typing in chat or speaking on ventrillo as I do actually playing the game, sometimes even more.

A noticeable effect for me is that I fall into certain speech patterns when I respond, or when I am starting a new conversation. I know for sure that I fall back into some of those patterns when I speak to other people, (non gamers.)

I was very suprised to hear the following phrase in a cartoon on cartoon network, "We owned the other team!" To a small degree I think we will see some limited additions to the English language by gamers.

If you wanted responses limited to written English, then I am sorry, I fail at life, (lol that is one of the phrases I have picked up from gaming.) You could, I suppose, analyze my entire response and search it for clues as to how gaming influences writing styles. But these are some of my thoughts in regards to your question.

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lem
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quote:
it dumbs down the language in order to increase speed.
I don't think it dumbs down language; it just streamlines it. Depending on your perspective, you could argue dumb-write enhances your writing ability. Just because "we" are not used to it, it doesn't mean it is dumb. It could be that language is in transition.

It certainly seems to "dumb down" classic writing. However, I would not be surprised if a number of gamers who write dumb-write fluently are actually very good classical writers when they put their mind to it.

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Dr Strangelove
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What I wonder is if gaming in any way diminishes their ability to "put their mind to it".
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GodSpoken
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This has been debated in the context of "e-mail linguistics" for years. I think its perfectly acceptable within the frame of quick text messages, ingame, IM, informal messages of any kind where speed helps.

However, when you are unable to switch to other styles for appropriateness because you don't understand why you should or that it matters .....yeah

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ladyday
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In my experience most in game slang stays in game unless you're deliberately trying to be funny. On the guild message boards and such most of us wrote fairly normally though the abbreviations were still used since everyone on that board knew what they meant.

As far as the silly omg we pwnz joo talk, I think most people that use it are just goofing off and making fun of the stupid way of speaking rather than trying to communicate, though a few things have leaked into a grey area I suppose. Woot seems to be an example of a word that is leaking into the mainstream. In any case, I think that kind of speaking is heavily influenced by the community, though I noticed in World of Warcraft people were talking that way from day one.

[I mean, when my uber guild goes to PoF and pwns FRo with the leet pulling strat (even after another guild tried to gank and got smacked down by teh GMs), we're not going to gather around and say 'My word, another victory for us! Hurrah, let's all go to the tavern and have a round on our guildleader!'. RS is going to get spammed with people saying various versions of 'woot'.]

Then there are the roleplayer type gamers who call everyone Lord and Lady and would never dream of using abbreviations or 'leetspeak' to communicate in game. These guys tend to stay in character on message boards and the like, but it's pretty doubtful they speak that way in real life (in teh RL [Big Grin] ). These tend to be the same people who have the four line hotkey whenever they cast a spell to tell the group what the spell is, what it does, what deity they are invoking, and other such important information that you need to know when you're waiting for that heal to land [Big Grin] . A lot of these guys (though not all) played table top RPGs and have some practice speaking 'in character' before they get to mmorpgs.

And then there are the people who mostly use punctuation and spelling, use abbreviations that are commonly known in the community, and might put a little shout out to their deity in their little group message. I think this was the majority of EverQuest players, though World of Warcraft seemed to have much less of the role player types and a bit more of the leetspeaker types. In this case I would say that the players are just being themselves but adapting to the local lingo.

Oh, finally, there are the people who make up a catagory of speaking all their own. There is at least one person in every guild who is nearly impossible to understand unless you learn '<insert name> speak'. On our Everquest server, this unusual language consisted of various 'Euro slang' words along with a fairly consistant reversal or ommission of certain letters and inexplicable abbreviations. I have no idea where these people come from.

I thought perhaps this was just an EQ thing (considering I played on a server that was about half Euro and the American half did admittedly have something of a loose grasp of the English language at times) but the same thing happens in World of Warcraft as well. *shrugs* go figure.

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King of Men
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
Some kind of stuff

TLDR
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Youth ap Orem
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It took me a long time to figure out what FoTM meant.
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Jon Boy
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quote:
Originally posted by lem:
I don't think it dumbs down language; it just streamlines it. Depending on your perspective, you could argue dumb-write enhances your writing ability.

I don't buy that for a second, to be honest. Good writing is clear and easy to understand. Punctuation and capitalization act as subtle cues to guide readers. Abandoning them might not inhibit clarity too badly, but poor spelling and syntax certainly do.

quote:
It certainly seems to "dumb down" classic writing. However, I would not be surprised if a number of gamers who write dumb-write fluently are actually very good classical writers when they put their mind to it.
I'll believe it when I see it.
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Mr.Funny
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I'm a gamer. I'll use abbreviations when it is appropriate, such as in the middle of a game when there things other than typing that need to be done. I'm also more likely to slip and use less proper grammar and punctuation in a real-time setting, such as an IM conversation, because it allows me to converse at a faster rate. However, in something like an online forum, where my words are saved for everyone else to read, I'm much more likely to pay attention to what I write.
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King of Men
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That is perfectly reasonable. There's such a thing as adapting to how much bandwidth you have available. A fast-paced gaming situation, or the really terrible interface of a cellphone, are both good reasons to abbreviate and put an extra burden on the reader. Especially since the reader will respond in kind. The total effort of writing and deciphering textese is probably less, provided it is done on a cellphone, than the total effort of writing proper grammar.

But in a forum, where you have all the time you need, and a full QWERTY keyboard? That's rude.

As an incidental aside, the English language is really pretty streamlined already. Being a pidgin tongue, it has spent the past few centuries dumping complex grammatical devices, redundancies, and other baggage. By now it's probably about as pared down as it's going to get without impairing comprehension.

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FlyingCow
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This also depends upon what point you came to "gamer grammar" in your life. I didn't start playing online games and really interacting on instant messanger until college, so I can transition back and forth between standard written english and gamer-ese depending on context.

Students I have taught, however, cannot make this adjustment as easily.

I have taught seventh graders who speak in gamerspeak almost all the time, and it definitely comes through in their writing. The amount of times I've seen papers turned in with "u" for "you", "ur" for "you are", and "4" for "for" is astounding, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

You learn best when you use what you are learning. It is hard to learn a language in a vacuum.

For example, a friend in high school had a hard time with her writing and asked me for help. Turns out at home she spoke only Cantonese, at work she spoke mostly Cantonese, she watched Cantonese videos instead of any english television, and read only Cantonese books. She had virtually no exposure to English outside of school, and it was affecting her ability to learn and use the language.

The same applies for gamerspeak. If that is all a young student writes at home (games, email, IM, text messages), switching gears in the classroom is difficult.

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BlackBlade
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^^ That goes without saying I think.

I think gaming, instant messaging, and cell phone text messaging have all created an environment where certain adjustments are made for convenience, effectiveness, etc. Since so many people do those 3 things I imagine there are going to be some small additions to acceptable English.

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lem
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I think flyingcow makes a good point about when people start playing games being a factor in how it affects their writing ability.
quote:
I don't buy that for a second, to be honest. Good writing is clear and easy to understand. Punctuation and capitalization act as subtle cues to guide readers. Abandoning them might not inhibit clarity too badly, but poor spelling and syntax certainly do.
If I read a Spanish paper, I may be able to phonetically sound it out, but I will have no comprehension of what it is saying. What makes something clear and easy to understand is a set of "rules" and "assumptions" that are agreed upon in society. Good writing follows rules because rules give it clarity for other people.

Society, however, is not static. We have not achieved perfection in language; much of language development is affect by subjective feeling. Anytime we move from the status quo, it seems like poor spelling and syntax. Language adaptively changes.

Things get messy when we crossover “game speak” with the real world, but there is nothing inherently wrong or dumb with the evolution of our language.

Computers have reshaped our society. They will reshape our language. Dumb-speak does follow it's own set of evolved rules even as it defines and evolves it's own rules.

That being said, if there is no appreciation or understanding of the status quo in academic language, then these kids will have a rough time trying to support themselves.

In the episode where the kids at Southpark are trying to make videos for school news, Cartman makes a good point about how people like to see black people but are comfortable with Caucasian middleclass speakage, and so Token learned to speak like a white man.

Even as society changes, we need to be aware of norms so we can adapt to job opportunities. (I am not endorsing that "white" is superior to "black." I only used that show as an example of when others have noted the need to appeal to their audience.)

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Primal Curve
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I'm sorry, but I almost ALWAYS use correct spelling, punctuation and capitalization when instant messaging someone. Doing otherwise comes across as rude. I always chastize people who IM me but cannot hold a decent conversation.

Of course, I can type about three to four times as fast as most people I know. Still, if you can't keep up, then talk to someone else.

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Kristen
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quote:
As an incidental aside, the English language is really pretty streamlined already. Being a pidgin tongue, it has spent the past few centuries dumping complex grammatical devices, redundancies, and other baggage. By now it's probably about as pared down as it's going to get without impairing comprehension.
English isn't a pidgin tongue, it is a full language and it developed from a dialect of West Germanic. You may be thinking of how it incorporated a lot of loan words from the French and Norse, but that merely occured during English's evolution--it did not result in a new means of communication. See, a pidgin develops independently of two languages and is an amalgamation of both their grammar and lexicon. It is often used in trade. The crucial aspect to a pidgin is that it can't be a native language-- it's purely functional.

That being said, most Indo-European languages have evolved to being less morphologically complex--less noun endings, vowel shifts, cases, tenses etc. However, that does not mean that English is more streamlined: as verbs now often have two+ parts (have been running, had left) because they don't simply change shape like many did in the past, the language is actually bulkier. Still, this does not mean that English is more or less difficult or convenient: the language has merely shifted from having very complex words to having very complex sentences.

This is a really interesting discussion! I wish I knew more about gaming and could participate.

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ludosti
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I think you can switch back and forth just fine - I know I do. For the most part, in IM and in-game I rarely use capitalization and punctuation. I use a few but not a lot of abreviations and think I am usually pretty coherant. On forums and in most email, I write, well, just like this.
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BlackBlade
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It might be interesting if people posted what specific gamer grammer they have come across, Ill post a few just to see if any of you have come across it as well or different variations:

"More Like....":
This is a common one, its usually said after a declaration of some sort. For example if somebody said "This dungeon is way hard" a person might respond "More like you need to get some skillz" or "More like (the designing company) are idiots."

Equations:
This is obviously almost exclusive to written format, but I have actually heard people say things using this principle out loud. (I know salesman often use this style too) but its along the lines of X+Y=Z. It might be something like "sword of destruction + me = ownage!" or "mage+magic damage gear = clutch"

A very common addition to the equation are the letters FTW (For The Win) those are often tacked on to where I wrote "clutch." To combine all of what I have said so far, together:

"Sword of destruction + me = ownage!"
followed by the response, "More like sword of devestation FTW."

There is the condescending "O RLY?" which is said after somebody has complained as a sort of "grow up and quit crying" response.

Certain phrases have been created to take the place of already established ones. For example I have recently heard people instead of saying "What he/she said is true." they will shorten it to "True Story."

QFT "Quoted For Truth" is used instead of "I agree" but that is used in the forum community too and not just gaming.

some other overlapping phrases are

IMO or IMHO "In My (Humble)Opinion"
Again I hear people say those sets of letters rather than what they stand for in gamer conversation.

Finally, it seems to me that because programs like ventrillo and teamspeak exist but not everybody has them, with some of the gamers in a group typing in chat or speaking on vent and team speak it is only natural that the writing style would immigrate into the speaking style of gamers. I adjust my writing style to suit the people I am speaking to (how well I do this is debatable:) but I think I could agree that the more one spends typing or speaking within a specific medium the more that medium dominates their permanent habits.

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