A feature supported by Unix and some other OSes that allows
two or more logged-in users to set up a real-time on-line conversation. It
combines the immediacy of talking with all the precision (and verbosity)
that written language entails. It is difficult to communicate inflection,
though conventions have arisen for some of these (see the section on
writing style in the Prependices for details).
Talk mode has a special set of jargon words, used to save typing,
which are not used orally. Some of these are identical to (and probably
derived from) Morse-code jargon used by ham-radio amateurs since the
1920s.
Most of these are not used at universities or in the Unix
world, though ROTF and TTFN have gained some currency there and IMHO is
common; conversely, most of the people who know these are unfamiliar with
FOO?, BCNU, HELLOP, NIL, and
T.
The MUD community uses a mixture of
Usenet/Internet emoticons, a few of the more natural of the old-style
talk-mode abbrevs, and some of the ‘social’ list above;
specifically, MUD respondents report use of BBL, BRB, LOL, b4, BTW, WTF,
TTFN, and WTH. The use of rehi is
also common; in fact, mudders are fond of re- compounds and will frequently
rehug or rebonk (see bonk/oif)
people. The word re by itself is
taken as ‘regreet’. In general, though, MUDders express a
preference for typing things out in full rather than using abbreviations;
this may be due to the relative youth of the MUD cultures, which tend to
include many touch typists and to assume high-speed links. The following
uses specific to MUDs are reported:
Some B1FFisms (notably the variant spelling
d00d) appear to be passing into wider use
among some subgroups of MUDders.
One final note on talk mode style: neophytes, when in talk mode,
often seem to think they must produce letter-perfect prose because they are
typing rather than speaking. This is not the best approach. It can be
very frustrating to wait while your partner pauses to think of a word, or
repeatedly makes the same spelling error and backs up to fix it. It is
usually best just to leave typographical errors behind and plunge forward,
unless severe confusion may result; in that case it is often fastest just
to type “xxx” and start over from before the mistake.
See also hakspek,
emoticon.
