English for role players
Originally published at The Preternatural Post. Please leave any comments there.
Most RP on Twitter is in English. This is what I’ve been told by my international friends. The only reason I doubt it is because sometimes, I’m not sure what is being said, even if it is, ostensibly, tweeted in my native tongue. It’s not because the words aren’t in English, most of them are. It’s that the grammar, spelling and use of slang make the tweets virtually unintelligible. And if I can’t read them…well the average role play fan can’t either.
In the interest of understanding, and because I am reasonably sure there are some SL out there that I really would enjoy reading if only I could make sense of the tweets, here are some suggestions about the grammar and spelling rules role players really shouldn’t ignore (we’ll cover the slang and acronyms elsewhere).
Spellcheck and autofill are your friends
Turn these options on! Sure, we’ve all been bitten by these nefarious word-swappers at one time or another, but the truth is, they save us from the typo gremlin more often than not. So unless you are the winner of this year’s National Spelling Bee, these handy services should be every role player’s first line of defense.
Turning spellcheck and autofill or autocorrect on, isn’t enough however. RPers need to keep an eye on these sneaky little devils to make sure they are doing their job. The sad fact is there is no standard behavior for the handy services across all twitter client apps, let alone all the devices you can possibly tweet from. That means Twitter for iPhone may fix your habit of transposing letters in common words but HootSuite on your computer won’t catch it or, rather that automatically fixing the mistake it may just underline the misspelling and leave it to you to correct Also, since many of these services “learn” based on your use, if UberSocial regularly corrects something TweetDeck might not if you haven’t made the mistake or used the phrase as often.
Be aware that these services can lag and be very stubborn. Depending on your language habits, autofill and autocorrect may decide every time you type an i followed by two ls you intend to type I’ll not ill, even if ill is contextually correct. If you use both words equally, they may just leave it alone and assume you typed the correct word. Another common trap is the lag that sometimes exist between when you type something and when it is corrected. Many role players have been caught when autocorrect decides to correct something after you’ve hit send or tweet.
Shortcuts and extra space
One of the biggest challenges of role playing on Twitter is the 140 character limit. It’s not easy being that concise all the time. We all go over the limit at times, so the question becomes how to handle our verbosity.
If you’re only a couple of characters over the limit, that can usually be fixed by switching to a symbol, numeral or abbreviation. For instance, an ampersand (&) can replace “and” and free up two characters. Numerals or digits can come in handy too. “3″ is shorter than “three”. Abbreviations and contractions can serve similar purposes. “won’t” is far shorter than “would not” and an acceptable alternative even if your character tends to speak very properly.
There are a couple of caveats when it comes to using numerals and abbreviations or contractions.
- Use numerals for the numbers they represent not words that sound the same. 2 equals “two” not to or too.
- Some abbreviations and acronyms cross the line into slang, so use them cautiously. Most Americans know FBI stands for Federal Bureau of Investigation the vast majority probably have no clue that bg means background.
- Acronyms can mean different things in different countries. DC may indicate the District of Columbia or Detective Constable depending which side of the pond (Atlantic Ocean) you’re on.
- Shortened words such as thru, nite, tho and w/ or w/out are generally understood to represent through, night, though and with or without. Use them in a pinch, but please, not in every other tweet.
If you absolutely can’t cut things down to size you can run through multiple tweets. A couple of ways to indicate that something is continued in the next tweet is to append it with a > or (c). Conversely the next tweet should begin with a < or )c_ so readers understand that something came before it.
Another option is to use a service such as Twitlonger or even Tumblr or Posterous for longer tweets. Twitlonger was developed expressly for this purpose and is integrated with several twitter clients including Seesmic, UberSocial and Osfoora. Twitlooger can also be used from the web as a standalone service although it supports only a single twitter account to be logged in at a single time and is not available as a standalone mobile app.
Something Adult RPers ought to be aware of is that some content cannot be posted using Twitlonger and will result in the non-recoverable removal of that content. Such content includes crude or indecent language, sexual/adult content (including fetish or adult stories) and content with advocates or is biased against an individual, group or organization. Not only will the content be removed and destroyed by Twitlonger but repeat offenders will be blocked from using the site.
Role playing on twitter is collaborative storytelling, not texting. Although there are some residual similarities, the shorthand many adopted to streamline text communications are not appropriate for Twitter RP, unless, of course, your storyline involves a conversation texted between characters. No one is going to claim Twitter RP is great literature. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give it out best and that means making the attempt to use proper English and give the best performance possible. We owe it to RP fans…and to ourselves!