Language and the Internet

The language of virtual worlds 179

He is charged up and ready for action.

He carries:

A mobile phone

A case containing dictionaries

A set of calling cards

At any given point, you can type a command which will call up
an inventory of the possessions a character has. This is important
in a game context, where players negotiate all kinds of difficult
situations and gain weapons, treasure, skulls, food, or whatever on
the way (as well as points for their score). Depending on the type
of MUD, players can add new rooms, objects, scenery, and even
types of command, so that sites come to display great variation.
Typical commands are@who, to find another player loggedin;
@whereto find a player’s location;lookorexamine(followed by the
name of a room, person, or object) to elicit the relevant description;
get,hand, anddropto manipulate objects;go,@join,orteleportto
control character movement. There are conventions for speeding
up the typing, by abbreviating the commands.
Probably no other domain within the Internet offers such possi-
bilities for creative, idiosyncratic, imaginative expression, and the
likelihood that this situation will produce a distinctive linguistic
variety is the main reason for handling MUDs separately in this
book. Even if they prove to be a passing phase in the history of
Internet applications, they provide a fascinating example of the
way in which the medium can foster a fresh strand of linguistic
creativity. Although some MUDs are virtually identical in their
purpose to synchronous chatgroups, the simple fact that they are
set in an imaginary world is enough to motivate differences in the
kind of language used. The skill involved must not be underes-
timated: it takes time to become a competent MUD player, and
some MUDders hone their skills over months or years (the ‘plot’
of a MUD is in principle never-ending, capable of being forwarded
by someone in some timezone all day everyday). As the medium
becomes increasingly ‘expert’, accordingly, so the linguistic con-
ventions become more institutionalized and sophisticated. In this
chapter, I shall not review those features of MUD discourse which