How we learn the jargon
by Mike Schramm 
Dec 5th 2009 at 2:00PM
We definitely have lots of jargon to go around, from LFG to twinks to PuGs and a lot more. But what's most interesting about all of these answers, to me, is the way it spreads. There's a little bit of Googling and research going on, but really it's a very social thing -- you see "wtb" in the trade channel, and then you ask someone you know what it means (rather than looking it up somewhere else). Thus, definitions of the terms are very organic: "pst" could mean "pssst, here's a whisper" or "please send tell," and yet because they both mean the same thing, both meanings propagate. Likewise, usage tends to be a very social thing -- the person who types "LFG strat need heals" won't type "would u like 2 go to strat?"
Quite fascinating. Unfortunately, I don't know how useful this kind of survey is for actual research (as I understand it, things have to be much more quantitative than anecdotal like this). But I always love hearing straight from players how these things work ingame. Interesting that something that might be seen as an individual experience (asking friends or guildies about jargon to learn it) is actually a very common one.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Magma Dec 5th 2009 2:09PM
PST has NEVER meant the sound. It has always meant please send tell. What happens is, people assume, mistakenly, that It means the sound so they go on using it in that fashion. When their friends see it and ask, they tell them its the sound like real life. Mis-information spreads like wildfire, and there are a couple other acronym's this applies to.
Magma Dec 5th 2009 2:12PM
Another perfect example of this, in an earlier article, was that on the PTR at one point inscription got an extra glyph slot. This was phased out during PTR testing, but for some reason, many people who don't do inscription still seem to think scribes get an extra glyph slot even though it never went live. Mis-information=wildfire
alpha5099 Dec 5th 2009 2:15PM
You're acting like thinking pst is the sound of a real-life whisper is somehow a bad thing. How does that negatively affect the game? I don't really care what the original meaning is, "Please Send Tell" is a stupid acronym. For me, it'll always just be a whisper noise.
Gamer am I Dec 5th 2009 2:16PM
misinformation = one word
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/misinformation
Good day, sirs.
Zeplar Dec 5th 2009 2:20PM
Mag I think you missed the point of the article, which was that meanings are organic. You sort of supported it by saying "misinformation spreads like wildfire."
Nick Dec 5th 2009 2:25PM
I never knew people associated PST with that.
That just seems plain stupid.
Kvothe Dec 5th 2009 2:27PM
To Magma: I've always thought both can work. It's not misinformation unless it's actually false, and pst CAN mean the sound made during a whisper. It came originally from Please Send Tell, yes, however language can evolve and since there's nothing specifically wrong with the whisper sound explanation, you can't truly classify it as misinformation.
Plus, please don't try to tell me the sound WoW plays when you receive a whisper isn't "pst!" :P
Detson Dec 5th 2009 2:30PM
I agree with the above. Language is always changing. If a mistaken usage conveys accurate info, its no big deal. Besides, there's no dictionary definition for "pst," its a new word/acronym.
Cramer Dec 5th 2009 2:36PM
If you say that language is organic, which i agree with, then i think what you are really saying is that language evolves. When life evolves the basic steps include a random set of gene combinations that don't care about the environment followed by natural selection that kills off the life with genes that don't work in the environment.
In this way misinformation is like the random genes that don't know anything about the environment, and the only thing that says they are wrong or not is whether they survive in the environment.
The point is. If people use the word PST incorrectly, and it continues to be used that way, it becomes a norm, whether its origins were true or not and then becomes correct.
I personally get a tiny bit annoyed when i read "LFM for 10 Naxx, PST me for invite" as "Looking for more for 10 man Naxx, Please send tell me for invite" because the me doesn't need to be there and it ruins the flow of the sentence, but i know that most people read PST as psssst, in which case it does flow.
I once told a guildy to stop swearing when he typed gtfo at group member and he started yelling at me because he didn't swear. I then realized he was probably in junior high and that i shouldn't have said anything.
Kakistocracy Dec 5th 2009 2:38PM
Also, I'd love to hear how you define "meaning", as you seem to reject the notion of "what a word is used to convey" as "meaning".
While I prefer prescriptive definitions to culturally descriptive ones for use in dictionaries, I don't think such a preference is as defensible regarding slang usage.
You say "pst" always means "Please Send Tell", and that misconception spreads, but what if someone who you would consider misinformed uses it onomatopoeically? Then won't the people with the "right' understanding be wrong in terms of the meaning of the statement as a whole?
It is certainly possible that "pst" was first used to mean "Please Send Tell", but it is by no means logically impossible that it independently (or even primarily) arose representing the sound of a whisper (though I take the acronym as a more likely origin, and the sound theory as an offshoot). It would be nothing short of folly to maintain that "pst" does not now exist equivocally.
Benjamin Dec 5th 2009 2:57PM
if you wanna get a real scary laugh oh how this carry's over into the real world,
just google video search: Wikiality Colbert
its as inciteful as it is disturbing as it is funny. this isn't just a WoW thing, at the very least its an internet thing if not a world thing
Graham Dec 5th 2009 3:46PM
I have NEVER even heard of the acronym "please send tell" until reading this article. I ALWAYS thought it was just "pssst." There is no right or wrong here. As the article pointed out, they mean the SAME THING! Don't freak out about misinformation! If there were a "right" and a "wrong" when it comes to vocabulary, then there would only be one "correct" language, and all of the others would just be languages that "people THINK have a meaning, but really don't." What's the difference? If you THINK a word means something, and a whole bunch of other people THINK a word means something, then it does. Simple as that.
Magma Dec 5th 2009 3:55PM
@Graham
Yes, there is a right. As a few others have said, PST came from other MMO's as well as being inserted into the actual World of Warcraft manual. PST=Please send tell, simple as that.
On a different note, I find it amusing that everyone who said along the lines of PST=Please send tell got downvoted, despite the fact even if you disagree, downvoting was uncalled for.
JR Dec 5th 2009 4:05PM
Magma, do you pronounce the S in the word "island"? No? Then you're guilty of the same crime!
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=island&searchmode=none
Go google "folk etymology", or "lexical reanalysis" to use the technical term, and you'll see more examples of this common phenomenon. It's really not the end of the world.
Hansbo Dec 5th 2009 4:52PM
I love how almost every single comment on this article is debating whether or not PST is the sound you make when you whisper, or an acronym for Please Send Tell, even though this was not really what the article was about.
:)
RobynM Dec 5th 2009 4:57PM
Graham - I'm exactly the opposite. I had no idea anyone considered PST to be the noise Pssst until I read this article.
I do agree with the basic point that language mutates. However, this doesn't stop people from arguing about it endlessly. Trying to get them to stop is like spitting into the wind, so try not to get too riled about it.
"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." - Humpty Dumpty
Sleutel Dec 5th 2009 5:12PM
You know what else is wrong? Using an apostrophe to pluralize a word instead of make it possessive ("acronym's").
Also, PST is an initialism, not an acronym.
Kakistocracy Dec 5th 2009 5:22PM
By standard usage an initialism is a variety of acronym. If you wish to maintain that "acronym" refer only to those sets of first letters from a string of words which can be pronounced, then it might be more accurate to say that "pst" isn't an initialism at all, but is in fact, a traditional acronym, as many people say "pst" as a word, and not "Pee Es Tea" or whatever.
Chirri Dec 5th 2009 6:51PM
For me, PST meant Please Send Tell because, about a decade ago while I played my first MMO, private messages were Tells. (EQ)
It wasn't until I played a later game (FF Online, I think? I could be wrong), where private messages within the game were named Whispers, that I started seeing the exact same acronym start shifting into the second usage - as in the sound of "Psst."
To this day, it does still irritate me to see PST used as a sound rather than it's original "meaning," but it's not the players' fault, and it's certainly less offensive to me than turning three letter words into single character sounds or numbers ... but it still makes the grammar snob in me cringe a bit.
"PST plz" just makes me die a little bit inside on both levels, though. Yes, I'm aware that I'm pathetic. :)
All of that said, though - if I'm whispering to someone IRL, I never, ever get their attention with the sound, "Psst!" S sounds are ridiculously easy for me to pick up, and only draw my attention. If I'm trying to communicate with someone on the sly, and I'm close enough to be heard in a whisper, I'm probably close enough to nudge them with my elbow.
Jimmy Dec 5th 2009 6:51PM
[Insert pointless crap that only affects me here]