Online English

Welcome to our online English page.

On this page you will find a growing list of resources regarding this topic.

If you would like to contribute with a link or links, or a guest post on the topic, please contact us, or leave a comment.

Online English – our blog posts

Pwn leet speak: a dynamic sublanguage and internet phenomenon (Part 1)
The dynamic sublanguage Leet (from ‘elite’) has been widely used on the internet and as part of informal electronic communication for over ten years, and is now a fixed part of popular internet culture and language.

Pwn leet: a dynamic sublanguage and internet phenomenon (Part 2)
The etymology of pwn is contested largely depending on the generation or clique arguing the point. Some maintain it is derived from a pawn checkmate in the game chess. …
However, like the popular ‘teh’ above, the origin is most likely a typo, in which the ‘p’ is pressed rather than the ‘o’ which is next to it on the QWERTY keyboard.

Business in cyber
The cyber- prefix has become synonymous with computers, particularly the Internet, but its original meaning is somewhat different, and it might easily not have risen to productive prominence at all.

Online English: some interesting links
We’re into our second week of online English and I thought it might be useful to put a few of the more interesting comments, articles, thoughts on online English in a post for your perusal.

iTrends
It’s the penalty of linguistic success. You invent a name for your product, and it takes off. Everybody starts using it, and before you know it, it’s become a generic noun in the language. You may not like it, as (after all) it was the name you chose, but there’s very little you can do about it.

The blogger’s rebellion!
The language of the blogosphere is an interesting beast. Unlike more restrictive social media platforms, blogs allow us room to write correctly. And yet, more often than not bloggers choose to distort their native tongue, playing with words, making verbs from nouns and messing with tenses, and plain ignoring précis in favour of elaborate prose.

Online writing is great!!!
While it’s true that learners may overuse exclamation marks in formal writing, this practice may be spreading to both learners and native speakers in online writing. The distinction between formal and informal is becoming more and more blurred.

What’s your favourite online English word?
We thought that it might be quite nice to ask our guest bloggers and regular contributors what their favourite online English word was and why.

A blob from a bog
Blog resembles blob and bog in particular, and both of these signify wet, messy, unruly things. I like both words, but I can see how some people wouldn’t.

A decade in online English language learning
In 2011, as we celebrate ten years since the start of work on one of the first e-learning platforms for ELT, broadband is standard and video has become an essential part of the online experience. … The technology has moved on immeasurably but our experience and learning from the early days is still relevant.

Webster and LOLcats
Many grammarians wail that [the] popularity [of LOLspeak] signifies the end of proper English as we know it, and that a degenerate age of linguistic ability is coming as a result. However, although this may seem like a new development, Noah Webster of Webster’s Dictionary made the argument two hundred years ago that this was the direction English ought to head in.

Caught in a webinar
Another one worth a closer look is webinar. … Even as new blends go, the word has been divisive. After entering the vocabulary, it spread quickly, appearing in Lake Superior State University’s “List of Banished Words” in 2005. Yet some people embraced it with little or no fuss …

Online English – video

Internet and language change
Professor David Crystal answers the question: How is the internet changing language today?

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Small talk in English
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