Linguistic descriptivism and The Slacktiverse

 

As we approach the one year anniversary of Fred Clark leaving this board to become The Slacktivist of Patheos.com we think we should take this opportunity to look back at what we have built over the past year.

Some of Fred's community of a year ago still spend time both at The Slacktivist and in The Slacktiverse while others have chosen to spend most of their time at one site or the other. The community of The Slacktiverse now has many regular voices that we first heard in the last twelve months, and we have had the opportunity to listen to these voices not only in the comments but also in the articles posted to the board.

Every community develops its own "in group" dialect and most of us switch codes/dialects almost automatically as we move from one group to another, one board to another, one community to another. (For example, yesterday there was a discussion on the board as to what it meant to call someone a "poe.") The community that grew up around Fred Clark's posts developed/recognized a system of short-forms, abbreviations and catch-phrases ranging from RTC to GIRAT to meta-Hattie. So, if we were to write a handy dandy glossary of those confusing allusions and collections of alphabets, what items would you include and how would you source/define them?

Note #1: This is a great opportunity to finally ask everyone else exactly what something like "IOKIYAR" means and you can always ask anonymously.

Note #2: We will collect items and definitions to include them in the FNEs

Note #3: See, even FNE needs to be explained, doesn't it?

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Comments

[Froborr]

So... what does IOKIYAR mean?

[Mmy]

what does IOKIYAR mean

It's OK if you are a Republican.

[Froborr]

Troll (verb, intransitive): To post with the intent of creating distress or conflict among other posters/readers.

Troll (noun): One who trolls.

Derived from troll, to fish using a moving line, from Middle English trollen, to roll or stroll.

[Anonymous]

I followed the link to the urban dictionary page, but am still confused. What does "It's OK if you are a Republican" mean. Does it mean something like "Republicans are people too?" or "It's okay for Republicans to do bad things but not for Democrats to do bad things?" or?

[Mmy]

@Anonymous: Ah, I was forgetting how important context is. There are many people (not just Republicans) who see things as being wrong when others do them but "okay" when they do them. Famously this is true for people who are seeking abortions.

So, Newt Gingrich having a "relationship" while still married? Okay. Bill Clinton -- impeachment time. Filibusters are bad is you are the party in the majority (and being filibustered) but good if you are the part in the minority.

I think a better link would be to this piece in the Washington Monthly.

[Anonymous]

Ah, okay. So it's about hypocrisy. Thanks for the elucidation.

[Joey Maloney]

As someone who reads here irregularly: RTC? GIRAT? meta-Hattie?

Apparently I am not aware of all internet traditions.

[Nick Kiddle]

RTC = Real True Christian, from the insistence of fundamentalists that liberal Christians are somehow not really Christian.

GIRAT = Greatest Investigative Reporter of All Time, Buck Williams in the Left Behind books, whose authors repeatedly assert that he is an incredible journalist but consistently depict him being the exact opposite.

meta-Hattie = a possible reading of the character of Hattie Durham, also from Left Behind, which suggests that she is a real human character with her own thoughts and feelings as opposed to the generic Evil Bimbo the authors depicted.

(If you already knew bits of this, I don't mean to come across patronising. I just wanted the answer to be full and complete in case you didn't know it.)

[Freak]

RTC == Real, True Christian.

GIRAT == Greatest Investigative Reporter of All Time

not sure about meta-Hattie, but all three are from Left Behind.

[Ian needs a nickname]

I introduced a friend to Fred's LB posts last week and realized that there is a lot of code. "Cookie" = an incongruous object made into a sexual fetish by people too sexually repressed to kiss each other(brought to you by the mind of LB author Jerry Jenkins)

what does IOKIYAR mean?

Answered above, but I prefer to think of it as a Viking battle cry. Accumulating considerable wealth while claiming to have taken a vow of poverty? It's OK if you're a monk? That's a solvable problem. IOKIYAM!

On the occasion of the anniversary, all hail the mods for maintaining and defending the community here, and thanks to Fred Clark for being big enough to see his own mistakes and make amends.

[Froborr]

I propose a name for this project: The Slacktionary

[Amaryllis]

"persecuted hegemon" - the kind of American Christian who likes to say that "America is a Christian nation" and "Christians are a persecuted minority" at the same time.

[Mmy]

What about "Nicky" pick the mountain range of one's choice?

[Nenya]

What about "Nicky" pick the mountain range of one's choice?

Oh, yes: "Carpathia" is not in any way a real Romanian surname. However, the Carpathian Mountains do exist. Therefore it's become traditional in these parts to call Nicolae Carpathia by various mountain or range names--Nicky Andes, Nicky Mauna Kea, Nicky Ered Luin, Nick o' the Hills. The more obscure the better, especially later in a conversation when other names have already been listed.

Also, meta-Hattie was the first to appear, but we've seen meta-Chloe (who may be a lesbian or bisexual and certainly didn't give up her brains when she converted or married Buck) and even on occasion meta-Buck or meta-Rayford. My favourite of these characters, though, was the assistant to Buck's "sensible-shoes"-wearing coworker, whom we decided was an adorable willowy trans* girl with spiky platinum blonde hair.

The injunction not to "kill us with sheep" came from the time a newcomer promised not to "kill us in our sleep." Someone misread this as "kill us with sheep," and ever since we've implored newbies to holster their weaponized ovines upon beginning to post.

I'm not sure how we got the blue-footed booby as a mascot, though. I think we are all just twelve? (And boobys do dance adorably.)

[Nenya]

Ah, and I see the sheep and the boobys are already explained in the FNEs. Ah, well.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

I popped into the FNEs and did a bit of spamflagging. There's quite a bit over there (it's a separate blog, so we don't notice it in the sidebar over here).

TRiG.