Abbreviations, Slang, and Other Shortcuts

Communication is a very essential tool for any group to share ideas, concerns, requests and many other things. A very key component to communication is having a language that is universal among everybody speaking it so that everybody understands each other. What I see happening more and more is people coming up with slang or weird acronyms and abbreviations that they expect everyone to know. This brings up the question, are we becoming more efficient communicators or lazier ones?

When I got hit with my first "lol", I had absolutely no clue what that meant. Then it started popping up everywhere until somebody finally explained to me it's meaning. Then came brb, lmao, fml, and all kinds of shortcuts to combine three or more words in one tiny acronym. Another thing that I'm sure would boggle the minds of some would be when we say something is "sick". When something is "sick" it can either be horrible or incredible depending on the context. We have a whole bunch of slang or terminology that can mean more than one thing, causing a lot of confusion.

So when the question is asked if we are becoming more efficient or lazy communicators, I would have to say that we are becoming lazier. The language is becoming less universal and this means that you have to stay up to date on the newest slang to stay in the communication loop.

Communication

Communication is the ability to give information as well as recieve it. We do not think about all the skills that are required for communication, but yet we do it everyday. The skills require are intrapersonal and interpersonal processing, listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analyzing, and evaluating. It's really amazing how humans can learn this skill in a few months. What make our species so amazing is even though we know how to communicate you can still learn new ways to communicate. On Earth there are many society which there are different ways they communicate with others.

In a society everyone has to speak a language that everyone in the society can communicate to. In a class discussion I learn that if a country do not have communication as an example was given India noone would be able to communicate which kills any any trade among the country. India soon made a language everyone will be able to speak which open the door to trade for the country as a nation. Being able to comprehend communication is the only thing that separate us from any other species on Earth. In every society from Arab to Spainish the ability to communicate play a major role in everything we do.

Communication play a very major role with people technology is no different with their standards. When it comes to standards computers must be very exact which they use TCP and IP so their standards are met. TCP which is known as Transmission Control Protol are data send as packets and recombined at their destination, which is a clear detail about emails that are being sent. IP which is known as Internet Protol is connected to every computer that has the internet. this process uses four numbers each one is between 0-255 which also show us that the internet must use a lot of skills that we do not even think about.

Post 2, Language

(The picture comes from http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2009/12/brushing-up-on-navi-the-language-of-avatar.html)

The professor talked about language this week, which reminds me of the language, Na'vi, in Avatar. It has a grammatical system, limited vocabulary and it becomes popular among humans.
It just created for a movie. That's so amazing!

Well, let's go back to our common life. I'm a Chinese speaker, and Engish is my second language. I don't know about what other people think about English. For me, it's not easy. Although a lot of my friends say English is the easiest one, who learn English as their second language,too.

Different languages have different characteristic. As I know, Chinese uses a logographic system for its written language, instead of an alphabet one. When people learn Chinese, they should learn hundreds of Chinese characters, Hanzi. I think the reason why Chinese people think English is harder to learn than the European do, mostly because of the total different language systems.

By the way, if you are interesting in learning Chinese, EMU has the program. :) And you can apply to Office of International Students for a conversation partner as well.

Languages

We all communicate using a language. Not everyone speaks the same language, but it is the medium of communication. though if you need translations we have tools now that are easier than having to learn a whole new language such as Babel Fish. In America our language is English. Then you consider the blind people who have to read their books in braille, and the deaf who communicate using sign language. Also language breaks up into different styles, like numbers, because we use those in communication too.

When we discussed measurement it made it easier to remember what we've discussed by linking our topics together. It made our me think that our measurements are like a type of language. In breaking up the Accounting, finance, marketing, and production measurements, it was like breaking up the different kinds of chairs. In Accounting and finance they make communicate with some of the same measurements or their language.

In most all other countries they you a different kind of scale than we do here in America, making the measurement languages different. When you measure something in kilos, you may want to convert it to pounds so that you can understand it better. Converting your numbers/ measurements is like having to translate the languages. In the business world you may speak a different "language" than someone in the educational field.

One of the topics we covered in class was Language. When I first saw this, I thought "Oh no, I'm taking English and Spanish. I don't need anymore language in my life." It's not what I expected though. The reason we were going to cover language in IS was to understand more about computer programs/data and to store information in a more meaningful way.

Something that caught my attention was the fact that the first 'spoken' language was developed over 100,000 years ago. That's a long time, and the fact that written was only developed 5,ooo years ago shows how big of a gap there was from us talking to writing. Living in the world that we do today, everything we do is centered around writing...EVERYTHING!

I think as modern day humans, we take language for granted. There is so much rich history behind something that we do so often. I myself never really knew what syntax and semantics really meant. I was so uninformed that I thought written language came shortly after spoken language. Everyday we just talk and write and most of us don't even have a good understanding of how our vast language even came to be.

language

What is language? We've been given definitions all of our lives, and most of it has been dealing with language arts, writing, and reading. It's hard for me to think of it any other way.

When we were given the definition of language relating to information systems, it was hard to comprehend. I mean, I'm used to language talking about someone's history, culture, background, and even family life. Not a means of just transmitting data or just relaying ideas. It is almost part of what makes up a person.

But I guess when you break down exactly what makes up language, and all of it's parts, it does just come down to the transfer of data. Concepts and ideas that make sense to both parties, because they both understand the language.

Language

In class we learned about language and how language is defined in the information system world. Written language was discovered around 5000 to 8000 years ago and spoken language was developed around 100, 000 years ago. Language in the world of IS is somewhat different but it derives from the spoken word that we use every day. In this class we study language so we can get a clear and decise meaning of the relationship programs and information. This will be helpful so that we may store information and be able to understand it in a meaningful way.

The purpose of language is so that we can take a group of ideas and find a way to turn them into concepts rather than try to remember everything that we see and hear. Concepts are derived two different ways: data and information. Data is based on facts, and information is a group of facts that has meaning. Can you imagine trying to communicate with someone without using facts. Well you won't have a pleasant conversation.

Thinking back to ancient times, I'm sure their language was very basic, not very many words. Kind of like the first computers, that only performed only one operation. I can remember the first computer that I had, a Commodore 64. You had to give it commands for it work, in other words, use language that the computer would understand. Some of the commands were: load, run, goto, and print. These commands are still used on computers but things have been simplified to the point where you don't have to type the commands, you simply click on a button or link to get things done. The above mentioned Commodore did not have a mouse. Can you imagine using a computer without a mouse. The mouse made PC operation a lot easier. So when using a computer, think of the simplicity of the first computer and the ancient hieroglyphs of ancient times. They both have evolved a lot over the years. And think where would be without either of them. Or would one exist without the other?

Text Messaging

Last week Professor Drake lectured about language and its origins. This got me to think of how I use language everyday. I feel that texting takes up about 50% of my language per day. It seems pretty ridiculous but it is the easiest way to contact somebody without verbally speaking to them. This got me to look into text messaging and how it evolved.

The first text message was officially sent, back in 1989, by a man who used a Motorola beeper. The recipient received the message as upside down numbers that could be interpreted as words. Texting was not very popular for a couple years with only 0.4 messages sent on average per month per customer in 1995. Most companies did not know how to bill text messages so this slowed the progression of the new technology. Many phones now offer a new form of text messaging called SMS. SMS stands for short messaging service. SMS is now offered with most smart phones and is used on the 3G network.

Text messaging has become the most widely used mobile data service. Approximately 74% of mobile phone users use text messaging today. In the UK, about 50 million text messages are sent everyday. This proves that text messaging has become a very serious means of communication and we should all embrace the new technology.