The language of virtual worlds 185
also on the ball. An example transferred to the Langscape MUD
would be:
Langman says, ‘what was the name of that book Chomsky wrote
in 65?’
Prof says, ‘Aspects of the theory ofsyntax’
Doc says, ‘Aspects of loses’An analogous behaviour to ‘losing’ turns up in face-to-face con-
versation, too, when two people speak at once, and one yields the
floor to the other (Sorry – you go ahead).
In the body of a MUD message, a very similar range of linguistic
forms and constructions will be found to those already encoun-
tered in chatgroups and other informal Netspeak situations – for
example, players use the usual range of contracted forms (gonna,
dunno,wanna,usta[‘used to’],sorta), abbreviations (BBL,BRB,
LOL, etc.: p. 84), and formulaic sound effects (aieee,mmmm,
arrgh). But when we step back to look at MUD messages as a
sequence, there are several differences, especially in those MUDs
which make use of emotes. The constant switching between say-
ing and emoting produces one of the most distinctive linguistic
features of MUD style: person shift. There is a perpetual alter-
ation between 1st and 2nd person in direct-address utterances
and 3rd person in the commentary-like emoting, as this example
suggests:
Langman says, ‘I’m sorry’.
Doc looks at Langman suspiciously.
Prof says, ‘Never mind, there’s plenty of time.’
Doc says, ‘Well, five minutes.’
Prof grins.
Langman drops the journal.
Langman looks suitably ashamed of himself.The use of a 2nd person pronoun in an emote would introduce
ambiguity, and tends to be avoided. If a screen said ‘Doc looks at
you suspiciously’, players (there may be many in the room) would
not be sure which of them was the intended recipient.