Internets English

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MOAR
Add pixplzkthnx to Internets English
Plz to be adding some pix now kthnx. Consult the image selection process for help, or just google up some pix.
Plz remove this notice once there are plenty of pix.


An early example

The mortal enemy of spellcheck, the various dialects of Internets English, ranging from 1337, imspeak, lolcat (now divorced from chanspeak, I don't care if they are the same; you don't see too much of Kitty Pidgin on *chans now) is a language that has a large amount of speakers, ranging from the Anonymous collective, their allied forces of ED, the *chans and various other major and minor e-communities. The former leader of the free world, George W. Bush, is also an aficionado of Internets English.

Many Internets English mainstays such as the verb "pwn" (a derivative of "own") are considered to be bona fide typos that, having entered the Internet Hate Machine, were not only accepted into the lexicon but aggressively adopted for everyday use. Though there is a different between 1337 and words like 'Pwn' and chanspeak, many internet dialects of English are spoken together.

In chanspeak, for example it is now an accepted option, nay OBLIGATORY that "the" be spelled "teh", "cake" becomes "caek", "hate", "haet" and "like", "liek"*.

*Many speakers also claim that you "fail it" if you spell like, leik or hate, hat.

Large quantities of the internet dialects spoken, for example "plox" ("please") and phrases like and "LOL WUT" (as in: "excuse me, what did you say?") are not well known in the "real world", make ordinary people think you're a retard when used in real world situations.

For example, going into your local bank and passing your teller a note that says "PLOX 2 BE GIVE ME MOAR JEW GOLD (or Lioncash) OR IRL B&" will unlikely get you a bag of crisp $100 bills much less a "NO U!"

The third category are Internets English words and phrases that have come to us from Japanese culture, either in their original form (see Desu and Kawaii) or via Engrish translation (see All Your Base Are Belong To Us and are much beloved by large portions of the Weeb.

Examples include, "DESU", "NO U!", "DO NOT WANT! and "that's totally kawaii!"

Examples

Image Macros

Other times, this raep of the Queen's English is deliberate, such as with the seemingly endless stream of 'cute' animal macros coming from lame NORP sites like lolcat, where the oh-so witty shooper will tag a variety of animals in lulzy situations with the obligatory hilarious IMPACT caption suggesting said animal can speak but not spell. Most of these wags can only get it up for an I HAS A (WHATEVER) shoop whilst college grads will show their parents that the small fortune it cost putting them through Yale was worth every penny by mangling the word corn into corm, for example. There is a difference between LOLCAT and chanspeak; it became pronounced a while ago.

See Also

Internets English is part of a series on Language & Communication
Languages and DialectsGrammar, Punctuation, Spelling, Style, and UsageRhetorical StrategiesPoetryThe Politics of Language and CommunicationMediaVisual Rhetoric
Click topics to expand