Ronia Cabansag LING

Ronia Cabansag LING 402 - Modern English Grammar Final Project 6 Dec 2020 The Grammar of Internet Humor: LOLspeak, Doge, and Because X As an informal space, social media allows users to play with written, published language in ways that would be less appropriate in other contexts. This unique medium has produced equally unique cases of language that appear to reject both prescriptive and descriptive grammar rules. In these cases, grammar rules are purposefully broken to produce a humorous result. One such case is Doge, an viral instance of internet language play characterized by two-word phrases that begin with “much,” “many,” “so,” “such,” or “very,” and end with an unexpected word (Figure 1). Figure 1: A Doge meme created But though they reject recognized rules, these by Marshall (2016) cases of internet humor still appear to follow some set of rules. In the case of Doge, for example, McCulloch (2014a) documents an instance where one Facebook user corrects another’s Doge phrase choices: An example that proves my point conveniently popped up on my Facebook while I was writing this, showing someone actually correcting someone else’s use of doge modifiers to be more ungrammatical. Friend #1 (posting link): Doge is a rescue dog. Much respect. So noble. Wow. Friend #2 (commenting): Your dogeing is too coherent. “Much noble, so respect.” This suggests that there are grammar rules to describe seemingly ungrammatical instances of internet humor. The purpose of this project is to explore the grammar of 3 prevalent categories of internet humor – namely, Doge, LOLspeak, and the use of “because X” – by answering the following research questions: What are some grammatical features of each category? What does each category of internet humor convey that makes it humorous? How did each case originate? How has the frequency of the use of each category changed over time? What do these instances of internet humor suggest about current theory regarding the nature of language structure and its use? Methods A database of 30 tweets per category was constructed using both a basic internet search and Twitter’s advanced search function, which allows one to find specific phrases. Doge phrases were found by entering “wow,” “such,” “much,” “very,” “many,” and “so” in the “Contains all of these words,” field of Twitter’s advanced search function. Each phrase was grouped into one of the following categories: “(X) wow”, “such X”, “much X”, “very X”, “many X” or “so X.” LOLspeak tweets were found by entering the hashtag “#lolspeak” in Twitter’s search bar. Each sentence was grouped into categories based on grammar rules that were broken. Individual sentences may have fallen into more than one category. When using the advanced search function to find “because X” phrases on Twitter, there was an overwhelming appearance of the typical conjunction “because.” Tweets containing “because X” were instead drawn from examples used in existing literature, as well as from the researcher’s Twitter feed. Phrases were grouped into categories based on the realization of X. Existing literature was consulted to determine when and how each category of internet humor was first used, as well as how the use of each category may change over time. Results Doge (or Doggo-lingo, Doggo-speak) Background As mentioned previously, Doge phrases are characterized by one or two-word phrases. One-word phrases most commonly include “amaze,” “excite,” “scare,” and “wow.” Two-word phrases almost always begin with “much,” “many,” “so,” “such,” or “very.” According to Marshall (2016), the second word must be something that makes the phrase ungrammatical. For example, “very food” would be considered an acceptable Doge phrase. Doge may also include intentional misspellings, omissions, and Figure 2: Doge phrases paired with a non-Shiba Inu image.Shared by Marshall, courtesy of Imgur. other modifications of English (Bivens, 2018). Doge first appeared in a 2010 meme that featured a Shiba Inu surrounded by the one and two-word phrases, which were printed in colorful comic sans (Marshall, 2016) (Bivens, 2018). This original meme and its variants convey what one imagines the Shiba would say if it were able to speak English. However, later instances of Doge phrases can be found superimposed on other images (Figure 2), or without any image at all. Many of the 30 tweets collected were published in 2020, and consulted literature regarding Doge was published no earlier than 2014. In December of 2019, The Tab, a youth news site, published the results of a poll where readers voted for Doge as “The Meme of the Decade.” This suggests that the novelty and humor of Doge still persists. Results In a sample of 30 tweets using Doge, there were 156 Doge phrases (Figure 3). Figure 3: Distribution of Doge phrases Count Percentage (X) Wow 35 22.44% Such X 31 19.87% Much X 29 18.59% Very X 28 17.95% Many X 26 16.67% So X 7 4.49% Cases of “(X) wow” most often appeared without a preceding X (71.43%). The next most common realizations of X were “much” (11.43%) and “very” (8.57%). In cases of “such X,” the majority of realizations of X were nouns (58.06%). In some uses, “such X” passed as grammatical when X was a plural noun or a gerund. For example, “such information” (User D16) and “such tail wagging” (User D23) were grammatical phrases. Others, however, like “such horse” (User D15) were ungrammatical. The next most common realizations of X in “such X” were adjectives (19.35%), followed by verbs (12.90%) and interjections (3.22%). 6.45% of words were indeterminate, including “want” and “fun” - either word could be a verb or noun, but this was unclear from context. In cases of “much X,” the most common realizations of X were singular count nouns (31.03%), followed by adjectives (20.69%), verbs (17.24%), interjections (13.79%), plural count nouns (6.90%), and plural count noun phrases (3.45%). 6.90% of words were indeterminate. In cases of “very X,” the majority of realizations of X were nouns (57.14%), followed by adjectives (25%), interjections (10.71%), and noun phrases (3.57%). 3.57% of words were indeterminate. In cases of “many X,” the most common realizations of X were plural count nouns (34.62%). That is to say, the majority of “many X” phrases were grammatical. Phrases like “many muscles” (User D11) and “many assets” (User D14) are acceptable among English speakers. The next most common realizations of X were singular nouns (30.77%), verbs (15.38%) and adjectives (7.69%). Interjections and singular noun phrases each made up 3.85%. There was also one case where X was a sentence – “subscribe today.” In cases of “so X,” realizations of X were equally distributed between nouns and adjectives. Each made up 42.86%, while one word was considered indeterminate. Nodar created a corpus of the speech in 100 Doge memes, and reported similar results (2014). Among “non-‘wow’ items,” “such X” was the most common phrase. Individual Examples User D1: (Posted with an image of an elementary science fair project display titled “Are smiles more contagious on rainy or sunny days?”) “Very science. Such fascinate.” Both phrases in D1’s tweet defy English grammar. As an adverb, “very” typically modifies an adjective (eg. “very long book”) or another adverb (eg. “ran very quickly”) (Carnie, 2013). In D1’s tweet, “very” is insead used to modify the N “science.” “Such” typically appears before a noun phrase headed by an adjective, as in “such great food” or “such a good boy.” In D1’s tweet, “such” instead precedes the verb “fascinate.” There are at least two possible interpretations of the humorous effect of Doge in D1’s tweet. On interpretation is that the simplistic phrases are poking fun at the equally simplistic “science” project in the image. Another is that they emphasize the project’s childlike charm. User D2: (In response to another user’s tweet about their workout.) “Wow. Many muscles. Much cool. So strong. Such Grace. Very awesome.” D2’s tweet was included in the Doge corpus due to its use of “wow” and two-word phrases beginning with “many,” “much,” “so,” “such,” and “very.” However, the majority of D2’s phrases still abide by standard English grammar rules. “Many” is properly followed by the plural count noun “muscles,” “so” is followed by the adjective “strong,” and “very” is properly followed by the adjective “awesome.” As mentioned previously, the adverb “such” typically precedes a noun phrase headed by an adjective, but “such” may precede a noun when functioning as a determiner (eg. “Such concerns are trivial.”). In D2’s tweet, “such” is followed by the noun “grace.” D2’s reason for choosing to convey a message using Doge rather than standard English isn’t particularly clear. This may be a case where ungrammaticality itself is humorous. LOLspeak (or Lolspeak) Background LOLspeak first appeared in the mid-2000s alongside LOLcat memes (Leler, 2011). These internet memes consisted of funny images of cats captioned with an equally funny phrase. Like Doge phrases in captions typically conveyed what the cat in the image might say if they could speak English. LOLspeak draws on language used in text messaging, as well as language used by gamers, or “leet” speak (Gawne and Vaughn, 2011). Gawne and Vaughn (2011) describe LOLspeak as “a complex and systematic rearranging of the English language.” LOLspeak is characterized by a number morphological and syntactic features, including, but not limited to, the following (Leler, 2011) (Gauer, 2011) (Gawne and Vaughn, 2011): Omission of the auxiliary verb (eg. “I not like dis.”) Replacing ‘not’ with ‘no’ (eg.

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