puppetmaker: (Bunny at Keyboard)
puppetmaker ([personal profile] puppetmaker) wrote2009-11-27 08:21 pm

LJ Idol Season 6 Free Topic 1: kthxbai

Since I did my usual Thanksgiving list of thanks, I have already done the first topic at hand so I could have taken out the easy route but that really isn’t my style.

Net speak is a strange language to me. I have learned a lot of the basics and have a general knowledge of how to figure out what is being said. Then there are the cases where I have to use the Internet to figure out what someone is trying to say. It took me a while to figure out that OP means Original Poster but I got that one down. I will say that I do use Ariel as my translator at times or educator. I know that Internet speak is driving teachers and editors crazy because they have to explain and keep explaining why this kind of spelling is not acceptable with the possible exception of a character texting and even then kept it short.

I saw kthxbai for the first time when I was working the homework help boards on AOL. I remember that the question was one that was an obvious attempt to get homework done for them by the helpers. I used the usual patch we had for these sorts of attempts and got the reply “kthxbai” from the user. It took me a while figure out what had been said to me but I sorted it out.

Internet speak doesn’t bother me on the net or in a text if I know the short hand. Texting use to be much more expensive than it is these days (Heck, I remember a time before cell phones and the CB radio craze but then I am a dinosaur). And in some ways we are creating a new language or at least a new way of expressing ourselves. I guess Esperanto was ahead of its time. I’m not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just a thing like so many other means of communication that are changing so rapidly.

If you have read this far then I would like to say kthx for reading.

Kthxbai.

[identity profile] lupagreenwolf.livejournal.com 2009-11-28 01:40 am (UTC)(link)
Generally if I see something I don't recognize, I just Google it and can figure out pretty quickly what it means and what the context is.

[identity profile] puppetmaker40.livejournal.com 2009-11-28 01:52 am (UTC)(link)
Google has saved me many an Internet social faux pas over the years.

[identity profile] mstrobel.livejournal.com 2009-11-28 03:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Same here. I remember the first time I saw 'ftw' I thought someone had typo'd 'wtf' and I was confused for about a week.

[identity profile] onda-bianca.livejournal.com 2009-11-28 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
I don't quite recall when I first say kthxbai myself but wonder who in the world comes up with such silliness!

[identity profile] trinalin.livejournal.com 2009-11-28 04:59 am (UTC)(link)
I had figured out most of the acronyms I'd seen on radw* except for YMMV. I eventually had to ask someone since I just couldn't figure it out. I guess I never really listened to car commercials enough before to make "Your mileage may vary" a standard part of my speech. (I do use it now, however.)

Oh, and I decided I was definitely a nethead when I said "LOL" outloud while laughing at something someone said.

*radw = rec.arts.drwho, my original 'net teacher.

[identity profile] wandereringray.livejournal.com 2009-11-28 05:16 am (UTC)(link)
*laughs* I have to Google stuff all the time.

[identity profile] joeymichaels.livejournal.com 2009-12-01 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
Breaker 1-9, bodacious entry. 10-10.