WOW is the most popular MMORPG

You might as well suggest that the competition was behind it. Making money from Wow in addition to destroying the game.

I can see it can be an interesting thought experiment. For someone. But not for me. :)

But the competition would risk exposure or worse.

If EA/Bliz were in control, they'd be in the perfect position to control the farming market and since they'd be the only ones with enough motivation to prevent it anyway - they'd be like a serial killer police captain.

Think about it ;)
 
Since it's 40 years since the moon landing. What if it happened today?:

Hustn: Ap0110 11, r u there? lol!
Ap0ll0: lol!
Hustn: Tech guys sez ty 4 fixin ntenna. lol!
Ap0110: n00bs!
Hustn: U landed?
Ap0110: Egl landed. lol!
Hustn: Gratz.
Ap0110: Small step 4 man. Big step 4 mankind. lol!
Hustn: Lol!
Ap0110: kthxbye. lol!

I'm sure it can be improved.

That is why it's getting interesting. How will it effect the English language?

I'm not a teacher in America, but kids over here in Taiwan are actually using this abomination on tests. They did a news article on this "martian" language a year or so ago. Students have a hard enough time learning English as a second language, but with this idiotic language they're getting confused. They use this a lot more because there are tons of MMO players here and they think that it's the proper way to write English.

I really don't think there is anything wrong with it in it's proper place like text messages or MMOs, but when kids think that this "isz teh w8 2 rite eng111" then something is definatly wrong. Soon we'll be seeing the dictionary putting in words like pwned or noobz. Hell, they probably already have put noob in there.

Have you ever seen Idiocracy? It's not the best of movies, but the concept is frightening.
 
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Yepp, I've seen it, and I agree with you.

Language is interesting. I think it's very likely that the shorthand/leet writing adopted through chat, on line games and SMS'es will affect how English (ands other languages) develop.

Linguists sometimes use the term language-process (translated from Norwegian, and I'm not entirely sure about the term) for changes that live their own life and is in many ways unstoppable.

A few examples:

1. At least on one occasion, what was to be the Norwegian language developed so fast that after 100 years the grand-grandparents (if they had been alive) would have a hard time understanding their grand-grand children.

2. In Norwegian, "tabasco sauce" is used for that particular type of sauce and not only the sauce marketed by McIlhenny Company. A few years ago a lawyer (!) representing said company tried to stop this, as it was supposedly a violation of copyright. Or something like that. She failed. No surprise, you can't sue a language. And for what it's worth, the only reason why we use tabasco sauce as a generic term, is the success of McIlhenny Company's product. And the only way to prevent it, would be to ensure that the sauce didn't sell.

3. Among teenagers and young adults in Norway the "kj" sound (as in "chore") seem to be replaced by "sh" as in "shame". Many elders, especially teachers (!) despises this and tries to stop it. So far without success. It's spreading. I think it can't be stopped, and that in 50 years this will be the norm.

And, somewhat unrelated, we recently had a revision of how some foreign words are written in Norwegian (we like to write words like they are pronounced). Thus "wire" shall now be written as "vaier", "clutch" as "kløtsj" and so on. A lot of people are protesting against this. What they forget is that this is not the first time this has happened. The norwegian word for "driver" is "sjåfør". It derives from french: "chauffeur", and until the 1920's it was written that way, then it changed. I'm pretty sure there was just as much noise back then, but nobody writes it like that anymore.
 
WTF does that mean?
That post by Myhoney was gold spam without a direct link. You actually had to google that second word to get to the site. Probably one of those schemes to get a better rating with search engines. Haven't found anything wrong with the first two posts though, maybe they were there to lay the ground work.
 
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Thanks guys.

I'm an English teacher(1st and 2nd grade) and never realized that languages were always in constant state of flux. Always changing or adapting. I just hope to hell that this...leet is it called....this leet doesn't seep into the written language until I am dead and buried. There is no way in hell I'm teaching the word noobz :mad:

@Arhu
Thanks. Commercials on the net. You gotta love them. They're almost as much fun as commercial on TV.:)
 
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Thanks guys.

I'm an English teacher(1st and 2nd grade) and never realized that languages were always in constant state of flux. Always changing or adapting. I just hope to hell that this...leet is it called....this leet doesn't seep into the written language until I am dead and buried. There is no way in hell I'm teaching the word noobz :mad:
....
Correct spelling is n00bz.
 
Nononononononon no correct spelling for noobz. There is no noobz. Never has, never will be a correct way to spell noobz :lol:
 
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Nononononononon no correct spelling for noobz. There is no noobz. Never has, never will be a correct way to spell noobz :lol:

Nonsense. There is no spoon. But there are n00bz.

I was tempted to say thet YOU are one of them. But I won't. I'm t00 polite and friendly.
 
There must be a seriously radioactive contamination cloud making it's way across the globe. :p
 
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Look up LOLspeak.

[ http://speaklolspeak.com/ ]

It explains, among other things, how to get from

“That’s a really cute cat. And look, he has a bow on his head!”

to

“OMG wau!! Dat beesings a kiti vary ful ov tewtul kutenis!! Bees wif da lukingz!! Omg him gotz da bowwagez on himz hed lyk WTF?!? OMG I tewtul wuntz to grabz dat kiti and fuzziez himz awl ovar … him sooooooo mooshy an fullz ov win!! Don werry lil kiti, I no eetz u! I luvz kitiz! I can has bunchiz ov dem! Mah kitiz luvz bowwagez too! YETH!! GIMME!! Kthxbai!”

in five easy steps.

They even made a programming language out of it, called LOLcode. Sample:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
PLZ OPEN FILE "LOLCATS.TXT"?
AWSUM THX
VISIBLE FILE
O NOES
INVISIBLE "ERROR!"
KTHXBYE

Oh, and, let's not forget the engrish.com forums. Sample:

I do not let it rap me anymore. When I was of 16 years I rapped it. Now the rap is hated.

It excites me!! On down! Cod has tickets to see Ryan Adams in live show for primary! Time! In Jax, Florida.
 
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That is why it's getting interesting. How will it effect the English language?

I'm not a teacher in America, but kids over here in Taiwan are actually using this abomination on tests. They did a news article on this "martian" language a year or so ago. Students have a hard enough time learning English as a second language, but with this idiotic language they're getting confused. They use this a lot more because there are tons of MMO players here and they think that it's the proper way to write English.

I really don't think there is anything wrong with it in it's proper place like text messages or MMOs, but when kids think that this "isz teh w8 2 rite eng111" then something is definatly wrong. Soon we'll be seeing the dictionary putting in words like pwned or noobz. Hell, they probably already have put noob in there.

Have you ever seen Idiocracy? It's not the best of movies, but the concept is frightening.

A few of my friends are teachers here, skaven. They've shown me tests and papers from their students. And it's either that or *extremely* informal English (approaching "Ebonics" level"). It's frightening, to say the least.
 
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Thanks PJ and Rith for that.

So it's basically what I expected. It's Engrish. Do you know how hard it is to get my students to get out of the habit of using Engrish or Chinglish(Chinese/English mix)?

I know my grammar isn't perfect and there are a lot of better teachers out there that don't use run on sentences like I do, but my strength is teaching through fun and games. It helps that I learned from a few great teachers on how to incorperate games with learning.

In any case this "lolspeak" is worse than Chinglish. With lolspeak it actively targets incorrect spelling and grammar. I know kids want to be different and rebel, but changing a whole language so that bad spelling and incorrect grammar is the "cool" way to communicate with each other can't be good. I still think that it would be ok if they just used it in their games or messages, but when it starts seeping into the tests and school assignments then those kids need a freaking tutor to remind them that there is a time and place for everything. Oh my god, I sound like my father :D

Still, I'm lucky in a way because my kids are still young. They're not playing MMOs or text messaging....yet....If I can give them a good foundation to build upon then it helps a lot when they are older.
 
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When I was in school they used to substract .5 points for each grammatical error I had, even in math tests! I complained about it, but now I see it made perfect sense!
 
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Just because something is the most popular does not mean that it works the best for everyone. I for one am a fan of a smaller retail MMO. I dislike the larger community, so I play Ryzom, because it is a closer-knit community I can talk to.
 
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I've been playing WoW for almost two years now. Some people might not agree, but I can't get enough of it. There's just so much to do, and so many places to go. There's always your professions (blacksmithing, leatherworking, tailoring, engineering, enchanting.. ect) to work on when you get bored of questing, or whatever. You can always sell your goods on the auction house
 
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Most popular = lowest common denominator. Don't get me wrong, I've played it and and enjoyed it somewhat, but it, by far, was not the best MMO I ever played. I think its success is based mainly on two factors: (1) it's easy to play, with a very shallow learning curve, and (2) it will run on even the junkiest computer. That doesn't say anything to the quality of the game though, just its popularity.
 
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