Finding an identity 65
He might have been talking about the early years of the Internet.
Similar uncertainties underlie the series of questions which open
the pages ofWired Style:^4
Writers today must navigate the shifting verbal currents of the
post-Gutenberg era. When does jargon end and a new vernacular
begin? Where’s the line between neologism and hype? What’s the
language of the global village? How can we keep pace with
technology without getting bogged down in buzzwords?Johnson soon found that his prescriptive urges, fostered by the
attitudes of his acquaintances, were absurd:
Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design, will
require that it should fi xour language, and put a stop to those
alterations which time and chance have hitherto been suffered to
make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will
confess that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear that
I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience
can justify.... [no lexicographer] shall imagine thathis dictionary
can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and
decay, and that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and
clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation.It is a conclusion that prescriptively minded Internet writers need
to bear in mind.
Most of the Netspeak authors are aware of the importance of
grounding their work in descriptive reality. The authors ofWired
Style, for example, are anxious to show that their ear is to the
electronic equivalent of the ground:
You might callWired Stylean experiment in nonlinear, networked
editing. When a new technical term, a bullshit buzzword, or an
especially gnarly acronym hits our screens, we send emails to
various editors and style divas.Wired Styleis the result of these
online discussions, which are guided by actual usage rather than
rigid rules.... Like new media,Wired Styleis dynamic and
rule-averse.(^4) Hale and Scanlon (1999: 2), for both quotations.