LOL isn't funny anymore | Hacker News Reader

LOL isn't funny anymore

cnn.com

15 pointskjhughes16 comments

He did a great TED talk on this:

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_lan...

I was literally just about to post that link. Truly great talk. I especially enjoyed that quote from 68bc where somebody complained about the quality of latin in certain areas, something which ultimately resulted into 'French' :)

"Barely punctuated, sparsely capitalized and with decidedly creative spellings throughout" Who texts that way anymore? Everyone I know who texts uses whole words, reasonable punctuation, and spell check.

>Who texts that way anymore? Everyone I know who texts uses whole words, reasonable punctuation, and spell check.

Sure, but he means texters outside "Cambridge Literature Department Gentlemen's Club".

And by "texts" he means SMS (short message service), and not the telegraph.

I'm referring to teenage girls, my little brother who texts incessantly, and every other person I've texted in the past year. I checked and there are two people who use "u" for "you" but that's as far as it goes.

Also, if I were sending a telegram, I would use every contraction and elision available, and no punctuation but STOP.

The Dutch word "lol" made a round trip back to its original meaning. Whoever told the world "lol" stands for "laughing out loud" lied through their teeth.

I was at Cal in the early 2000s when Professor McWhorter was teaching there. I never took one of his classes, but I'd attend with friends who did as often as possible, sometimes standing room only.

If you ever get a chance to hear Professor McWhorter speak, take it; it'll be worth your time. He's brilliant and entertaining.

This is interesting. I've been fascinated for some time about these little sub-languages (another one is the language used on road signs).

On a slightly different topic, as long as we're going to mention the idea that texting is ruining literacy, we should also mention that there is a good argument that texting is actually having an enormously positive effect on literacy. The fact that so many students are communicating via written words means that, in many schools, it is now impossible to be both cool and illiterate. Suddenly there is a huge incentive to be good at reading.

I have no idea how texting is affecting students with high levels of literacy, but I bet it is causing a significant drop in the number of students with very low levels of literacy. Does anyone know if this has been studied?

"The going idea is that texting has, in essence, made graffiti a universal pastime: Barely punctuated, sparsely capitalized and with decidedly creative spellings throughout, texting means that today's America is reveling in writing badly."

This is an extremely poor and essentially meaningless comparison between graffiti and texting. People spell properly in spray paint on walls all the time. A defining characteristic of graffiti is its engagement with public spaces; I see no real connection between graffiti itself and the words the author used to describe it. To make a better comparison, this description could actually be applied to poetry rather than graffiti.

Careful. Dr. McWhorter is relaying "the going idea" here to establish context. He's not espousing that view -- he sees texting as fingered speech, not writing. Or are you objecting to a perceived disparaging of graffiti?

I am not actually saying that the author is pushing forward this sort of thinking, but I do think that the author is wrong in saying that this is "the going idea" as I have never heard that comparison before. My objection is to this common idea that graffiti is "low-art" while something like poetry actually seems much more damaging in terms of proper english usage, yet is regarded as "high-art" (historically). I simply fail to see the connection between texting and graffiti and it struck me as odd that this could be a commonly held belief.

here's a slightly different interpretation of LOL from british comedian David Mitchell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_x5cfdwP98

CNN isn't news anymore

No, but the clever headline got a lot of clicks thus made a tad bit of money for the cost of having a reporter watch a video and do a half-dozen paragraph summary.

[edit: as pointed out author is same person as video]

I believe that the author of the article is the same person speaking at the TED Talk -- or am I missing something?

Yep, you're right - probably needed some editor time though.

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