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Slava
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Postby Slava » Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:33 pm

When people rolled their eyes at a word, my best friend in college would grin and ask, " What's the matter? Are you antisusquepedalian?"
:!: -ses- :o
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

Philip Hudson
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Postby Philip Hudson » Sat Apr 21, 2012 2:00 pm

Slava, I can't read texting, tweeting or emticons. Actually, I don't even know how to insert an emoticon. What does your emoticon mean in plain ole English? I liked Perry's quotation and I am assuming you do too.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.

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Slava
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Postby Slava » Sat Apr 21, 2012 2:14 pm

Slava, I can't read texting, tweeting or emticons. Actually, I don't even know how to insert an emoticon. What does your emoticon mean in plain ole English? I liked Perry's quotation and I am assuming you do too.
I gather this means you don't have smilies enabled.

What I "wrote" was ! -ses followed by a kind of "grrr" face. Being picky about the spelling of sesquipedalian. I should have quibbled about the e instead of an i, too.

If you want to see emoticons, click the Profile button at the top of the page. That will take you to your profile, where you'll find the enable emoticons option. Then they'll automatically be changed into a picture.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

Audiendus
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Postby Audiendus » Sat Apr 21, 2012 7:13 pm

What I "wrote" was ! -ses followed by a kind of "grrr" face. Being picky about the spelling of sesquipedalian. I should have quibbled about the e instead of an i, too.
I'll give Perry the benefit of the doubt and assume it was a pun on "Susquehanna". :?

LukeJavan8
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Postby LukeJavan8 » Sat Apr 21, 2012 8:22 pm

Slava, I can't read texting, tweeting or emticons. Actually, I don't even know how to insert an emoticon. What does your emoticon mean in plain ole English? I liked Perry's quotation and I am assuming you do too.

Actually I am with you on texting, et. al. - I ignore
them. We went from Morse Code to telephone.
It seems to me to be a step in reverse: texting, that is.
-----please, draw me a sheep-----

Perry Lassiter
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Postby Perry Lassiter » Sat Apr 21, 2012 8:39 pm

I have it from a very good source that Perry was merely lazy and did not take the trouble to look up how that very long word was spelled. Philip and Luke, smiley faces began very simply ages ago to let people know what mood you were in. Especially if a comment might be taken as hostile, someone might use punctuation keys to write: :-) or merely :). If they wanted to frown, they'd use the other parentheses: :(
Many variants were added such as the wink: ;-). You can stick your tongue out with a :-P Somewhere, someone translated these to the emoticons that now show up to the left of where I'm writing this.
pl

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bamaboy56
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Postby bamaboy56 » Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:51 pm

Before I forget, ditto on the welcome to MelodyL. Hope to hear (read) and look forward to more posts. Luke, you're right. Texting, in a way, seems like a step backward. My wife and I text each other on our cell phones every now and then. I still can't get into too much of the Instant Messaging shortcuts. I might throw in an occasional "LOL" or ":-)" or ":-(" every now and then but, other than that, I write everything out. Drives my wife crazy because she uses every shortcut or emoticon she can and she can't understand why I have to write everything out. Old school, I guess. I suppose it's a good thing I've never learned how to send smoke signals. I'd probably still be sending messages that way.
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I'm going to change myself. -- Rumi

LukeJavan8
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Postby LukeJavan8 » Sun Apr 22, 2012 11:25 am

The Romans used a form of abbreviating things on all
their monuments, continued by the Popes through
the decades. One sees these monuments all over Rome.
We do it in advertising: lite for light, night for nite, etc.
But as a school teacher I won't and not because I'm
old fashioned, which I am, but simply because I don't
believe simpler is better, lesser is more, and taking the
easy way out is any sort of improvement. And ever
since WalMart used the smiley, I won't. I won't contribute
any more to the Chinese domination of American life.
-----please, draw me a sheep-----

Perry Lassiter
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Postby Perry Lassiter » Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:45 pm

The medium is the message. Abbreviations are driven by limitations on space allowed in texting (and Twitter) and by the difficulty manipulating those tiny keyboards. I've found also that I can reach some people almost instantly by text who don't answer their phones or check their email. An interesting study in language evolution would be comparing old texts to the latest ones. One find would be the development of widely understood abbreviations. I see smh more and more, usually for smack my head. I also remember development in the old CB craze and insertion of some phrases like 10-4 in the language.
pl

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bamaboy56
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Postby bamaboy56 » Sun Apr 22, 2012 10:17 pm

All the years I worked as a court reporter, I specialized in shorthand, abbreviations and shortcuts. Odd I prefer not to use them when I text (except in very few cases). Go figure.
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I'm going to change myself. -- Rumi

LukeJavan8
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Postby LukeJavan8 » Mon Apr 23, 2012 12:30 am

If you had not explained smh, I would not have
understood. If keyboards are so small and that is
an excuse for abbreviations, I suggest keyboards
be made larger. LOL means loser on the loose to
me. If we cannot use words we might as well refrain
from sites like these.
-----please, draw me a sheep-----

Perry Lassiter
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Postby Perry Lassiter » Mon Apr 23, 2012 1:04 pm

Traditionalist! LOL IS rapidly becoming a word. I just remembered this morning that prior to smiley faces, people would append <gr> after statements to indicate they were grinning. Saw one recently, but they're almost extinct. Smileys could go the same way. I also notice I use all caps at times to emphsize words that I would stress in speech for clarity. Electronic communication, such as on this site, tends much more toward the colloquial than formal English. Speakers from other countries may want to comment as to whether this is happening also in Germany, e.g.
pl

LukeJavan8
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Postby LukeJavan8 » Mon Apr 23, 2012 1:14 pm

Traditionalist, yes, and proud of it. Never saw 'gr' as
'grinning", have seen it to mean anger, however.
And anytime I see LOL I think of people who cannot
find something intelligent to say and use that as
an insertion to mean absolutely anthing. I'd say
nothing before I'd ever use it. Yup traditionalist, and
proud of it. On sites like this using all caps I've been
castigated for 'yelling', some people really get all
hot on top when one uses all caps.
-----please, draw me a sheep-----

Perry Lassiter
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Postby Perry Lassiter » Mon Apr 23, 2012 4:14 pm

It' becoming traditional online to use all caps for yelling, but only if the entire post is all caps - or a significant part of it. You can stress a word or two, which I sometimes do, to make sure your meaning is clear. LOL, gr, and :-) are used to mean one is speaking lightly or humorously, to defuse misundeerstandings. Many like deadpan humor, but fear the readers may take offence. Thus the lol or emoticon to reduce the possibility. Certainly some overuse it. Usually I think of a growl as grrr sith multiple r's.
pl


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