We use the Internet for many things: business, shopping, writing letters, talking to people, finding information, and so on. In recent years, a new kind of English has grown on the Internet. There’s no real word for it yet, so we’ll call it e-talk. People don’t like typing too much. To save time, they turn phrases (短語(yǔ)) into a few letters called acronyms(首字母縮略詞). Acronyms are often used in chat rooms.
Some of them are:
BTW(by the way) BRB (be right back)
LOL (laughing out loud) IMO (in my opinion)
People also use many abbreviations. They are shortened forms of words. Some common abbreviations are:
info (information) puter (computer) pic (picture) sec (second)
We usually don’t see people when we communicate on the Net, so people have new ways to show feelings. Most people use their keyboards to draw “feeling”, such as:
: ) (happy) :-( (sad) ; : P (joking) : O (surprised)
These days, many forums have picture feelings. For example:
happy
sad
angry
cool
There are even whole new words, like ‘newbie’ (someone who is new on a chat board or forum). When you write something bad about someone else, it’s called ‘flaming’ the person.
It takes time to get used to e-talk. Also, different groups in the Net have their own special ways of communicating. Newbies sometimes have to ask other people what they mean. As the Internet grows, e-talk will continue to grow and change.
小題1: Why do people type acronyms?
| A．To show their feelings. |
| B．To make jokes. |
| C．Because people can type them quickly. |
| D．In this way, newbies won’t understand them. |
小題2:What does “My puter is not working well. :-( ” mean?
| A．The person is happy about getting a new computer. |
| B．The person has to go away from their computer. |
| C．The person is angry at somebody. |
| D．The person is sad that his computer is having problems. |
小題3:If someone is angry, what may he type?
| A． | B． | C．LOL | D．BRB |
小題4:E-talk will probably_________.
| A．keep changing |
| B．stay the same |
| C．be used by people on the telephone |
| D．be easy for newbies to understand |
小題5:People can do the following through the Internet except _________.
A. doing shopping B. writing diaries
C. eating foods C. playing games
