Obnoxious But Telling

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Crispus Attucks Day
Learn What Your Name Means Day
St. Piran's Day

 

You know those highly irritating AT&T ads about the texting girl who talks in abbreviations and her exasperated mother?  I just found something actually interesting in the latest one.

 

Text Girl and her Hilariously Hip texting grandmother are playing Scrabble with the exasperated Mom, and Text Girl writes in “ROTFL.” Her mother starts to read the letters aloud, then explodes*: “R-O-T-F-L—‘roffle’ isn’t English!”

 

Okay, maybe not, but I thought it was interesting that she pronounced it “roffle,” even with the “T” in there. (And of course the kid would probably have gone with “ROFL.” The “T” is Old School.)  She said it very naturally, too, once she realized what the not-word was.

 

Yes, I know it’s a commercial, but it still says something about how Netspeak is sneaking into our conversations.

 

 

*She doesn’t actually explode. That would have been cooler.

Comments

[liquidjewel.livejournal.com]

"Roffle" is actually geek/trollspeak, so it really doesn't impress me. Compare "lollerskates" and "rofflecopter".

[sunshine-shaman.livejournal.com]

I find it rather sad that net speak is making it out of the net and into the real world. It is pathetic that the world is letting the English language go to hell in a hand basket. People are forsaking proper grammar and spelling to type faster! English is dying, and these fools with their "cool texting people" aren't helping it! Furthermore, my friends and I use full sentences when we text. We use the actual words. Commas even make it into our texts! As an English Enthusiast, I really wish those commercials would stop trying to further the indoctrination of netspeak into real life. It's sick, and it shouldn't happen. So... Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*puts up dukes*

Grammar snob. The "English is dying!" argument is a load of garbage. It's changing--very rapidly, too, as we make lots of technology that needs new terms--but language change has happened for thousands of years. In point of fact, English is huge and robust and versatile to the point where it's the world's biggest culprit in the list of "killer languages."

If you want to bitch about language death, I've got a whole list of truly endangered ones right here, which are in serious danger of joining the mass grave of the dead or murdered languages of the world. Don't come griping to me when English is EXPANDING by coining some new terms from the internet to go with the thousands of words already assimilated from other languages. You get no dang sympathy HERE.

Also, didja know that "put that in your pipe and smoke it" has a long history? It was actually used in a Sherlock Holmes story. "Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Busybody Holmes!" Heh heh heh.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

Whee! Good on you.