Lolcat nation

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10/12/2010

Every generation strives to differentiate itself from the preceding, be it with dress, hairstyles, mannerisms, cuisine, or slang. The last one often causes the most problems, as you can look at someone and think they have a weird haircut, or dress funny, but as long as they use proper grammar in talking to you, you can still understand them.

Slang is the point where communication breaks down. It's almost reminiscent of cryptography, where 2 or more people have devised a system of substitution in messages, only comprehensible to another person possessing the means to turn the information back from code to intelligible words.

With slang on WoW, it seems to be split mainly along acronyms "LFM 4 VOA 25" and lolcat, which is basically a transposition cypher. It may look like the person can't spell to save his life, but there's a method to their madness. It's a mixture of baby-talk and deliberate misspelling of words, that, while annoying, still can convey a message.

However, the root word of lolcat is "lol", which I do have a problem with. When I was about 14, my family had a boarder. While she was a very nice lady, she had the nervous habit of laughing constantly while carrying on a conversation, even when it was a serious or boring subject. "So I went to the store (haha), and bought a bottle of water, and brought it to class with me (hahaha)."

LOL means "laughing out loud", and is used to show that the writer is talking about something funny, or literally laughing while writing the words. Unfortunately, it now seems to be overly used, much like our lady renter used to do. "Can I haz 2 gold pz lol" is not a funny message, nor is "we just raped allies in WG lol." It also seems that "lol" has replaced the period, as you will see it artificially tacked on to the ends of sentences, without any punctuation following it.

I'm nowhere near as introverted as Gevlon seems to be, with his list of rules for "The Pug." I congratulate someone who dings a new level during a dungeon run, as I am always happy when one of my toons gets to a new level, where they can equip new weapons and armor, and learn new skills. I also end every dungeon by saying "Good tanking and heals, thanks!" because after having played three tank classes (DK, warrior, paladin), I understand how hard tanking can be, especially when running with dps who overgear you by 1-2000 Gearscore, and have no concept of throttling their dps to allow you to maintain threat. I believe that a few well-deserved words can boost a persons spirit, and make the grinding of running dungeons a bit more enjoyable. My pally tank Clockwrknyt ran Shattered Halls at 68, and while the level 70 dps came and went, the healer stayed with me, congratulated me at the end, and said that they would really like to run Utgarde with me next.

I guess I'm just venting here because of boredom, while waiting for maintenance to end, so I can log in and check all the shiny new things we're getting with the patch.