Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Hi,

It was interesting to hear you address the texting issue. Ive always come down on the side of language purity on that matter, but you helped to convince me otherwise!

I have an interesting footnote on the history of english over the internet that I havent seen come up elsewhere before.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, before the public use of the internet, there were local BBS - bulletin board servers that people would call over modems and chat. Generally these were local because you actually needed to make long distance calls otherwise.

In the public and private chat boards where I was, Madison, Wisconsin we adopted a way to express laughter that Ive always preferred over using "LOL" or just typing out "Hahaha".

We would simply and reflexively mash the keyboard when we laughed at something someone said. It would come out as "alskfj" or "lk;sag". Really, as long as you could tell it was just someone mashing random characters on the home row of the keyboard, you knew they were laughing. If it went on much longer, it meant they were laughing a lot.

I always had preferred that method, as it felt more organic and reflexive like real laughter. But when I began using IM programs online and texting over the phone, every time I wrote "aslklj;", I just got a lot of curious questions, as if a cat had jumped on my desk. Sadly, I had to adjust to the norm.

Great show by the way. Im living now in the Palestinian Territories and listen via podcast.
Cheers