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Author Topic: Am I a grammar nazi? (Should that be a capital 'N'? What about the 'g'?)  (Read 9845 times)

Starver

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Background to my query.

In other news
Londonistan autonomy soon
I'm opening this up. Is it useful to use terms like "lolberal" (whatever you think about "liberal") and "m8" (whatever you think about "mate"), and now "Londonistan".

LW believes that using light-hearted terminology helps diffuse the conversation and keep it friendly, but I've tried to privately explain that it antagonises me, one reason why I'm now holding back from directly responding to LW's messages in a certain thread (the only one I've seen his vocabulary go in that direction, but I claim no omniscience).

"M8", to me, implies a sarcastic tone of a word that I wouldn't even expect to hear directed at me by my actual, RL, peer group.  "Lolberal" and "Londonistan" indicate a deep-set bias and/or preconception.  Am I so out of kilter that such liberal (NPI) use of these terms is, after all, unthreatening and non-mocking.

I've been communicating by text-only media for more than two decades.  I used 1337-5p34k before txtspk was even invented. There wasn't BBCode or HTML formatting when I began and so we indicated stressed points through alternate ways of indicating *bold* and /italic/ text and we also (almost!) all knew how to use apostrophes, at least before the Eternal September, webtv and Google Groups came along and spoilt things democratised the fledgling Web and adolescent Internet.   So maybe it's just me.

I will tolerate these... neologisms... if I'm obviously alone, or a minority.  I'm not averse to using the odd TLA, ETLA or even VETLA (Three Letter Acronym,  Extended (4) Three Letter Acronym,  Very Extended (5) Three Letter Acronym), which I appreciate is somewhat cliquey (and possibly impenetrably archaic to some, possibly even patronising), but I'd like to make sure I'm not in the silent majority, first.

It's not been a hasty decision, to open this up to public discussion; I'm prepared to be shown to be wrong, or simply outdated. So over to you. (And of course I hope this is a civil, if diverse, conversation.  If conversation there is.)

(Poll, perhaps?)
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penguinofhonor

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m8
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Willfor

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I think we can all agree that Loud Whispers should be exiled to the colonies if he can't use the goddamn Queen's English.

What kind of silly portmanteau can we give our vote for this? Hmm, Loud Whispers Exit becomes ... Lewexit? The Loud Exit? Remove Whispers?
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Loud Whispers

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To summarize what I said in our correspondence without quoting it in full (unless you're fine with making private messages public)

Calling someone boss, love, m8 and such is a common way of showing respect to those who aren't Mams, Ladies and Sirs, and once upon a time there'd be people calling each other govner
Lolberal and lolbertarian are to me affectionate silly terms, things like lolbertarian defuse the situation by bringing to attention how silly even the most serious of things can be. Some may see it as throwing shade on liberals and libertarians, but they are the two parties I favour, so the disdain is read in - bants don't come by holding what you believe in above jest ;]

Background to my query.

In other news
Londonistan autonomy soon
I'm opening this up. Is it useful to use terms like "lolberal" (whatever you think about "liberal") and "m8" (whatever you think about "mate"), and now "Londonistan".
Londonistan predates my usage for long while now, it's a joke because there's usually all these fascist people who were worried about London becoming Pakistan, whereas now we celebrate our diversity

LW believes that using light-hearted terminology helps diffuse the conversation and keep it friendly, but I've tried to privately explain that it antagonises me, one reason why I'm now holding back from directly responding to LW's messages in a certain thread (the only one I've seen his vocabulary go in that direction, but I claim no omniscience).
Sorry, it's a matter of habit - in fact as I typed that sentence I had to delete a "m8". I've done long well-researched writeups about political shenanigery but those usually get ignored, so I prefer to keep things informal and quick to type, more enjoyable for me if the same notice is given to information presented in the most efficient format

"M8", to me, implies a sarcastic tone of a word that I wouldn't even expect to hear directed at me by my actual, RL, peer group.
Language differences, in London "U allright m8" is very common, and in England there are regional variances and the Australians have their "g'day m8"

"Lolberal" and "Londonistan" indicate a deep-set bias and/or preconception.  Am I so out of kilter that such liberal (NPI) use of these terms is, after all, unthreatening and non-mocking.
I wear my biases on my sleeve, I am culturally enriching

It's not been a hasty decision, to open this up to public discussion; I'm prepared to be shown to be wrong, or simply outdated. So over to you. (And of course I hope this is a civil, if diverse, conversation.  If conversation there is.)

(Poll, perhaps?)
Poll sounds awesome

Criptfeind

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I don't get what your actual like, question or idea is. Even if it's annoying or whatever there's nothing to be done about it. If it's just a sanity check. Well. I don't think you're insane for not liking it, but eh.
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Starver

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This post seems rather passive-aggressive. I mean, what do you expect us to do, hold a vote and tell LW he's not allowed to say lolberal anymore?
No.  I wanted to know if I'm the disconnected one. If I am, I can feel bad about the polite privite request I made to consider other words and continue tending to what remains of my sanity. If not, I may have a small twinge of relief as I continue to write the same and read what I like, just the same.

Neither case restricts anyone.

I get your P/A point, though. Call it third-age extistential angst, perhaps, and an hour or so of internal conflict about whether I should say anything finally resolving this way. Otherwise you wouldn't have seen this.
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Shadowlord

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> so maybe it's just me
No, but 1337 is just awful, for the record.
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Flying Dice

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Nothing wrong with casual slang. I've slung a fair share of m8s and I'm not even a filthy Royalist. It's comprehensible and not particularly unpleasant, so as long as folks recognize that there's a time and place for it, as with any form of speech, there ain't no problem.
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nenjin

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This seems related to everything ending in ~, desu, kawaii or chan. Being irritated that people are always trying to talk like they're in a manga. Irritated or not, there's nothing to be done about it. Are you looking for solidarity on being annoyed by people's forum slang and flourishes? I guess I'll give you some of that. I only get annoyed when I can't even parse the sentence because it's buried under too much artifice and slang.

That said...

The b8 ain't so g8 m8.

Also yes it should be Grammar Nazi if we've decided it's a proper noun. If not, at least the N should be capitalized.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2016, 07:15:20 pm by nenjin »
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BlackHeartKabal

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How vehement is your reaction to someone holding up a spork?
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Loud Whispers

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How vehement is your reaction to someone holding up a spork?
Them's fighting sporks

Starver

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How vehement is your reaction to someone holding up a spork?
I don't like muggers at all.
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MarcAFK

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How vehement is your reaction to someone holding up a spork?
I don't like muggers at all.
That's a hateful thing to say.
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« Last Edit: June 22, 2016, 03:24:40 am by MarcAFK »
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Sheb

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I don't really mind the m8 or the Londonistans. I'm a bit annoyed at the cultural enrichment thing, because then it's usually when I cannot parse LW's post anymore.
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SirQuiamus

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At one point I was severely annoyed by /pol/ memes like cuck, based, enrichment, white genocide, etc. etc., but now I've Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pepe. (to the extent that ironic hipster-hate counts as love)

So, uh, don't be a nazi m8 just enjoy the gr8 bants

EDIT: Incidentally, "Nazi" should always be written with a capital N because it's derived from the Bavarian peasant name Ignatius.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2016, 04:58:05 am by SirQuiamus »
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