Stop saying these things

[ziege]

Its (the proper form of it is, for the person who was making points about contractions earlier, it’s is the possesive form of it) much like the word

That was me, and just to clear it up, “it’s” means “it is”, the apostrophe is to show a letter is missing. The possesive form is “its”. So you’re wrong, ner ner ner-ner ner

[Machine_for_to_kill]

First off lets settle the faggot controversy. I should have realized before posting that many of the people in this forum don’t live in the US and don’t quite know the slang, and curses used here. Faggot is just a slang word, like many others out there, and just like the other curse words out there it should not be taken in its literal meaning. Like someone pointed out fag is also slang for cigarette and its literal meaning is actually something completely different. How it came to be related to gays is not important but the point is that when someone calls you a fag you don’t answer by saying “I’m not gay you homophobe� no more than when someone calls you a motherfucker you don’t respond by saying “I don’t have sex with my mother.� I really didn’t expect people to be so touchy about their sexuality since when I said faggot I didn’t think anyone would take it literally, but if it makes you feel any better I don’t think you’re actually gay, and since apparently we have to be politically correct even when we ramble on in these forums let me also say that I think there’s nothing wrong with being gay. (hope that didn’t offend anyone)

This thread quickly turned into a discussion about who is mature or not, and what can be more mature then completely ignoring what someone is trying to say, and instead derive your own conclusions and ramble about things that were merely incidental to begin with.

So let me rephrase myself. First off this topic had nothing to do with gays, I still don’t understand how that got thrown into the conversation but as I said before, different countries have different expressions. This thread is also NOT a crusade against online slang and abbreviations in general. I myself use them quite often and as we all know a lot of computer terms are acronyms because this makes many things easier. Whether you know or not what CPU stands for makes little difference because we all know which part of the computer it is. Many abbreviations are also ok because they are simply meant to make things easier, things like OpFor or CovOp for example convey the message and its simply more efficient to use them. As somebody pointed out, the point gets across and that therefore it is proper English. But as usual the thread was taken as the perfect opportunity to get your daily flaming fix, and so I got answers like “I’ve been online for 30 years and this is our language you noob� or “oic lol wtf rofl ur ppl r afk rofl lmao asl bbl ttyl bbiab pwned lol stfu faggot�. So once again let me say that my grievance was only with certain phrases(the ones I pointed out in my original post), with no particular relevant meaning, being so overused. With people making thread topics with these arguments. Phrase like “omg omg that is so funny rofl rofl omg� are just so frequently used they don’t even mean anything anymore and they’re just dumb. Since when did God and rolling on the floor become such a big part of the online gaming. I can’t remember when the last time I heard someone in the solid world use the phrase “oh my god.� I’ve heard plenty of teenage girls use it, along with phrases like “so totally� and “and I’m so like�. So after making this thread too long for anyone too read it, here is my final statement: These phrases are at their essence meaningless. Own and 133t don’t convey a particular point, they’re just space fillers. Things one says just for the sake of saying something. I don’t like them, that’s my opinion and I think people who use them are just wasting bandwidth (much like most of the posts on this thread) That’s it.

[ziege]

How it came to be related to gays is not important but the point is that when someone calls you a fag you don’t answer by saying “I’m not gay you homophobe� no more than when someone calls you a motherfucker you don’t respond by saying “I don’t have sex with my mother.� I really didn’t expect people to be so touchy about their sexuality since when I said faggot I didn’t think anyone would take it literally

You’ve missed the point. By using faggot as an insult is insinuating that being gay is wrong, bad, and something to be ashamed of. That’s what’s wrong with what you said. We’re not offended because you’re calling us faggots, but offended by your ignorance and intolerence to gay people. Like I said, using that as an insult says a lot more about you than it does us.

[SylverDragon]

[quote=Sylver Dragon]Its (the proper form of it is, for the person who was making points about contractions earlier, it’s is the possesive form of it) much like the word

That was me, and just to clear it up, “it’s” means “it is”, the apostrophe is to show a letter is missing. The possesive form is “its”. So you’re wrong, ner ner ner-ner ner :D[/quote]

I stand corrected. I usually get that one straight, oh well, so much for my ability to use English.

[SCDS_reyalP]

. I should have realized before posting that many of the people in this forum don’t live in the US and don’t quite know the slang, and curses used here. Faggot is just a slang word, like many others out there, and just like the other curse words out there it should not be taken in its literal meaning.

That is bullshit. It has nothing to do with non-americans. I am an american, and as far as I know ‘faggot’ is a derogatory term for homosexual, much like ‘nigger’ is derogatory term for person of african ancestry.
See http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=faggot definition 1.
I think it is safe to say you didn’t mean ‘bundle of sticks’ or cigarette.

And yes, I see plenty of people use ‘nigger’ as an insult online when they have just as little information about the persons skin color as they do sexual orientation. That doesn’t make it less of a racial insult. (as ziege explained)

In any case, there is still some irony in the fact your justify the use of ‘faggot’ as slang, while ranting against things STFU. LOL@U :moo:

Oh, and FWIW (do you h8 that one too ? ) I am not particularly offended by the word faggot, the color pink or the number 69.

[The_Jesus_Zeppelin]

calling somone a faggot isnt that offensive, i mean you dont see a bunch of gay guys walkin around callin us straights? and if they did would we care? i mnean i have gay friends that crack more fag jokes than ive ever heard people who hate gays! im not saying its right, im just saying that its said so much today, ehy bother to take offense to it, give it a few months and everyone will be calling each other another name online.

[BlackDeath]

A new candidate for my first annual “Dumbest thread of the year” award

[The_Jesus_Zeppelin]

it wasnt a bad thread, i think it had some potential, and then was carried out wrong, and then somhow broke down into what it is now…well, it coulda been alot worse.
lets just leave it at that!

[DieHard]

omfg what a stupid topic rofl, complete ownage man :moo:

[SJ_Frankenstein]

Most “l33t” functions as any other abbreviation or shorthand. Quicker to write may be slower to read, but when you’re ingame (or arguing) are you more bothered about the time it takes for your writing or their reading? Same applies for IRC and forums etc., though there the laziness factor is greater. People who contribute to many forums, or simply have lots of other stuff to do, rarely are that bothered about precise grammar – both writing and reading it – as long as the point is understood without too much effort decyphering it.

Bear in mind that on IRC, and to a lesser extent instant messengers, it is more like a conversation and hence timeliness of reply is important. It takes longer to type than it does to orate a reply, and whereas in a conversation they start to hear the reply as soon as you start to give it, on IRC they do not start to have the response until you have completed it. To retain the natural flow of conversation corners have to be cut somewhere, and it just persists elsewhere.

There is also the insider joke (which is where the 0/o tends to come in) - rediculous grammar is often intended in order to indicate sarcasm or a widely known perception within teh intarweb culture. “pr0 gamer” quickly and easily indicates the writer is less than completely serious about the topic of professional computergame players, “teh intarweb” is synonomous with the perceived AOL customer, “innernet” suggests reference towards a cynical view of an American…

True a skilled writer would not need to indicate the tone so plainly, but more often than not people post to communicate something during leisure time, rather than to create an impression of their intelligence or character upon someone they will never knowingly meet in that other dimension - “IRL”. There is some reflection to be found mainstream with txt msgs.

I find grammar tends to be more of an indicator of personality rather than intelligence. TBH i consider it far more curiosu when someone makes a point which is punctuated with PERIOD. Nobody feels the need to go around finishing with EXCLAMATION MARK!

Might I add that often times they are used to convey emotion or a sort of inflexation that you may hear when someone is speaking but must be shown when in chat. Ex. TYPING IN ALL CAPS!

Nice points, DG. :drink:

[SJ_Frankenstein]

I kinda take offense to all of this American bashing! :bash:

Just cause you all have better beer than us and our politicians are idiots, hehe!

[Kerunch]

All Politicions are idiots.