Hack & Slay to Respectability:
Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) Jargon &
The Spillage Into Mainstream Communication

Diane Shortt



Jargon, by its very nature, is a form of communication that is either inclusionary or exclusionary. Originally a French word meaning "twittering of birds," fifteenth century French thieves, or argot des malfaisants, developed a secret language to communicate amongst themselves in the presence of outsiders without being understood (Howard 231). In the late twentieth century, thieves are joined by wizards, FurryMUCKs, and bots in computer-generated virtual communities knowns as MUDs, MOOs, and MUSHes. Over the past twenty years, the human-computer interface has significantly changed the way we interact and use language, largely because of the ability to create simulated virtual communities such as Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs).

It is this new vocabulary which holds these subcultures together, and, as with the malfaisants, knowledge of the jargon defines one as either an insider or an outsider. Because computers are becoming such a dominant force in all apsects of our modern culture, the terminology that accompanies the technology is now shared with a wider mainstream audience. This terminology, which is largely attributed to computer "hacker" slang and was originally used amongst "hackers" for fun, social communication, and technical debate in text-based bulletin board systems, has evolved at such an alarming rate that it is now challenging the structure of spoken and written language because of the spillage into mainstream communication. What was once a tool of exclusion now has several "respectable" dictionaries -- The Hackers Dictionary and The Jargon File -- which are in the public domain. The opening paragraph of The Jargon File states, "There are (by intention) no legal restraints on what you can do with it (the File), but there are traditions about its proper use to which many hackers are quite strongly attached. Please extend the courtesy of proper citation when you quote the File, ideally with a version number, as it will change and grow over time" (Raymond 1). In other words, the line between computer jargon and mainstream communication grows even fuzzier as the language is absorbed from virtual reality into conventional expression.

Historically, the first MUD was programmed in 1979 by Essex University student Roy Trubshaw in MACRO-10 (the machine code for DECsystem-10s). "The game was little more than a series of inter-connected locations where players could move around and chat" (Bartle 1). Shortly after, it was rewritten with a much more sophisticated database which included rooms, objects, and commands. Players were able to add new rooms and commands, which caused some complications because memory was at a premium and the game definitions took up much of the available memory. Early in 1980, Trubshaw rewrote the program for a third time, but this time in Binary Code Program Language (BCPL). There was no objective for the players, only primitive communication, no scoring system, and even some of the infrastructure was missing. Richard Bartle took over control of the program and modified it extensively when Trubshaw left Essex. In the spring of 1980, Essex University linked to ArpaNet in the USA and the first external players logged in and tried the game out (Bartle 1-2).

For the first few years, MUD had only one database and was populated primarily with students at Essex. With more external lines added to the DEC-10, outsiders joined in. The machine was swamped with modem-using British game-players, so the University allowed people from the outside to log-in to play MUD between 2am and 6am (Bartle 1-2).

The first MUDs generated a whole host of offshoots and hybrids in which the user controlled a character. Originally patterned after the book-based role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, the game permitted players to move in and out of text-built virtual worlds. The objective of the game was to gain points until the player achieved the rank of "wizard," at which point the wizard gained certain powers over mortals. Either playing alone or as part of a group, players killed monsters, combated each other, solved puzzles, and gained experience in the quest to become a wizard. The host computer program acted as "Dungeon Master" or "Arch-Wizard." It had control over the system and maintained order in a hierarchical society based on a series of written and unwritten laws (History 1-2).

Early MUDS were fixed worlds with gold to find, lamps to carry and demons to clobber, but present generation MUDs, especially the ones that offer a user programming language such as the TinyMUCK and TinyMUSH families, allow the player to create objects and build rooms which tend to lead toward more socially interactive environments than the LP-family of MUDs, which mainly stick to the 'grab the loot and smeg the monster' formula; on a TinyMUCK, you're more likely to have a dragon as a lover rather than an enemy (History 1-2).

In 1990 Pavel Curtis, a computer scientist with XEROX in California, used a more sophisticated programming language called MOO (MUD Object Oriented), written by University of Waterloo student Stephen White, to design this new generation of user programming language MUDs. This system allowed users to build things in a simulated environment by linking objects. Today these MUDs are sophisticated "real-time" rooms in which people interact with each other, often hundreds at a time, in three dimensional space, with video, sound, text, and images, which are either social or action-oriented (History 1-2).

The first generation text-based MUDs saw the proliferation of much of the jargon that still exists today. Originally a form of inclusive communication between hackers, according to The Jargon File, the lexicon is now categorized into three distinct areas -- slang, jargon, and techspeak -- which do not follow the traditional linguistic definitions. "Slang (is the) informal language from mainstream English or non-technical subcultures; jargon, without qualifiers, denotes informal 'slangy' language peculiar to or predominantly found among hackers; and, techspeak (is) the formal technical vocabulary of programming, computer science, electronics, and other fields connected to hacking" (A Few Terms 1). Jargon and techspeak are often difficult to distinguish between because much of the techspeak originated as jargon and much of the jargon originated from overgeneralizations of techspeak terms. The source of many of the terms is hard to pinpoint also because "hackish usages have been independently reinvented multiple times, even among the more obscure and intricate neologisms. It often seems that the generative processes underlying hackish jargon formation have an internal logic so powerful as to create substantial parallelism across separate cultures and even in different languages" (A Few Terms 2).

The standard method of jargon formation, or jargonification, were established before 1970 and spread from such sources as the Tech Model Railroad Club, the PDP-1 SPACEWAR hackers, and John McCarthy's original crew of LISPers. They include verb doubling, "soundalike" slang, the '-P' convention, overgeneralization, spoken inarticulations, and anthromorphization. "Verb doubling, peculiar noun formations, anthromorphization, and (especially) spoken inarticulations have become quite general" (Jargon Construction 1).

In standard English construction, to double a verb is to use it as an exclamation, for example, "Bang, bang!" Verb doubling is used by hackers as a concise, sometimes sarcastic comment on subject matter or often a method of ending a conversation; for example, "Boy, what a bagbiter! Chomp, chomp!" (Verb Doubling 1) Hackers will use rhymes or puns in order to convert an ordinary word or phrase into something more interesting. "Soundalike" slang is considered flavorful if the phrase is bent to include some other jargon word. For example, the Boston Herald becomes the Boston Horrid, the Boston Globe becomes the Boston Glob, or the New York Times becomes the New York Slime. These terms are intentionally transparent (Soundalike slang 1).

The '-P' convention is a method of turning a word into a question by appending the syllable 'P.' This originated from the LISP convention of appending the letter 'P' to denote a predicate (a boolean-valued function). The question expects a yes/no answer. For example, at dinnertime: Question: "Foodp?" Answer: "Yeah, I'm pretty hungry." or "T!" (The '-P' convention 1).

Overgeneralization is a very conspicuous feature of jargon whereby techspeak items such as names of program tools, command language primitives, and even assembler opcodes are applied to contexts outside of computing wherever hackers find amusing analogies to them. On a grammatical level, hackers take various words and add the wrong endings to them to make nouns and verbs, often by extending a standard rule to nonuniform cases (or vice versa). For example, because porous --> porosity, or generous --> generosity; hackers generalize: mysterious --> mysteriosity, obvious --> obviosity, and dubious --> dubiosity (Overgeneralization 1). Another class of common construction uses the suffix 'itude' to abstract a quality form using just about any adjective or noun. This usage arises especially in cases where mainstream English would perform the same abstraction through '-iness' or 'ingness'. Thus: win --> winnitude and loss --> lossitudecruft (Overgeneralization 1).

Hackers also reverse this transformation; they argue, for example, that the horizontal degree lines on a globe ought to be called 'lats' - after all, they are measuring latitude! In addition to these overgeneralizations, nouns can be "verbed"; and similarly, all verbs can be "nouned". For example, win --> winnitude/winnage, or hack --> hackification. Furthermore, nonstandard plural forms are prevalent, such as mouse --> meeces, or caboose --> cabeese (Overgeneralization 1). Hackers do not consider this as poor grammar, but as an expressive distortion of language. It is grammatical creativity, a form of playfulness. It is done not to impress, but to amuse, and never at the expense of clarity (Overgeneralization 1-2). Spoken inarticulations are the most accepted form of jargon formation that has spilled into mainstream communication. Words such as 'mumble', 'sigh', and 'groan' are spoken in places where their referent might more naturally be used because of the inability to represent noises in written form (Spoken inarticulations 1). Finally, anthromorphization is a rich source of jargon construction because hackers "mystically" believe that the things they work on every day are 'alive'. It is common to hear hardware or software talked about as though they had intentions and desires (Anthromorphization 1).

Hackers also developed a number of punctuation and emphasis conventions. One of these, TEXT IN ALL CAPS, is interpreted as 'loud' or as shouting, or the * is used to signify emphasis, as in "What the *hell*?" The underscore is also common, suggesting underlining, for example, _The_Forever_War, and words may be emphasized   L   I   K   E   T  H  I  S  or by a series of carets (^) under them on the next line of text (Hacker Writing Style 1). Hackers also mix numbers and letters more freely and correct spelling is sacrificed for a more phonetic short form, though a premium is placed on literacy and clarity of expression . Many studies of on-line communication have shown that electronic links have a de-inhibiting effect on people. Introverts are able to find a voice through the electronic medium that they are unable to communicate in person (de Wolf 1-3).

Within the new generation of MUDs, language plays a secondary, though important, role in both social and action-oriented rooms because of the shift from a text-based to a multimedia format. "A MUD is a software program that accepts connections from multiple users across a network providing access to a shared database. Each user browses and manipulates this database from the 'inside', generally seeing only those objects that are in the same 'room' and moving between rooms mostly via the connecting exits" (Welcome to MUDdom... 1). It is estimated that approximately 10 per cent of bandwidth on the Internet is dedicated to players in MUDs, and this figure is exponentially growing with the number of online clients signing up with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) . There are basically three different types of MUDs: combat-oriented, social-oriented, and miscellaneous. Combat-oriented MUDs involve the least amount of role-playing. In these Language Programmed MUDs, players fight, usually in large groups, to kill. At the end of each play period, the game gets reset. Another type of combat-oriented MUD is DikuMUD (pronounced Dee-Koos). Engaged with strategies most often rooted in fantasy, individuals or groups hunt down monsters, or sometimes other players in order to accumulate points. Social-oriented MUDs and Miscellaneous MUDs depend more on in-depth role-playing, and less on hand-to-hand combat (Types of MUDs 2).

The field research that was conducted for this paper included observation of two different players in a DikuMUD called The Realm. This MUD is based on fantasy books by J.A. Salvador, including The Forgotten Realm. In the book series, characters kill animals and creatures they meet along their journey and accumulate special powers for each kill. It is the journey, the quest, and the obstacles that the characters encounter that makes the transition from fantasy book to MUDdom so successful. Eighteen year old S... first logged on to The Realm over three months ago. She is an avid reader of fantasy, particularly of J.A. Salvador books, and when she saw an advertisement in a magazine for The Realm MUD, she spent over three hours downloading the demo off the Internet. S... played the board game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) since she was a young girl and was introduced to text-based D&Ds on modem-using bulletin board systems by a friend when she first started high school. She understood the rule-governed hierarchical online role-playing game and immediately defined an online character.

S... chose from a long list of physical characteristics that included gender, complexion, head (shape), hair, hair color, beard, girth, eye (shape), eye color, eyebrows, nose, mouth, ears, height, and human/creature. From each of the physical characteristics she was able to choose from specific traits that best described her character (Note: It was interesting that characters were only able to choose between Caucasian and a slightly darker complexion). Upon entering The Realm, each character is equipped with plain grey pants and a shirt, a small dagger, a set amount of money, and some food and water. The character moves from town to town buying better equipment or food and drink in the over thirty different stores, and every time she kills something in the forest -- a monster, a rat, a bat, a zombie, or a gnome -- she gets more money to buy better weapons, clothes, manna, better spells, or stamina. S...' character can also be killed, but each time is resuscitated within a short period of time to carry on her quest to become a wizard.

In the lower left corner of the screen, a section is dedicated for characters to engage in text-based real-time on-line conversation with other characters playing in The Realm. MUDders' language, called Talk mode, is a shorthand method of communicating filled with, for example, "hakspek". It replaces, for example, "for" with "4", or "sucks" with "sux". Another method of communicating is with emoticons. This shorthand method indicates emotional states such as humor, sarcasm, irony, or joking. Some examples are :-) 'smiley face', :-( 'frowney face' or :-/ 'wry face'. Finally, the most popular method is communicating with acronyms. Some of the more common ones are "lol" (laugh out loud) or "brb" (be right back). S... interacts with others mostly in the public, but sometimes in the private chat rooms. She agrees that anonymity makes it easier to open up to strangers, but there is still uncertainty on her part about being 'rejected' and often, she can't really tell if someone is actually joking or not.

S... has been playing in this MUD for long enough that she recognizes and is recognized by other players. The last time she was MUDding, there were over two hundred others also in The Realm. She socializes outside of the game via email and a private chat line called ICQ (I Seek You), with two people she met while playing the game. Both young men are East Coast Americans that share her interest in alternative music, particularly a band called The Dwarfs.

During one session, I was able to observe the private language that S... and G..., a twenty year old man from Long Island, New York, have developed between themselves. It is primarily language that is taken from The Dwarfs music and modified as their own slang and jargon. Some examples include "Go avay yah," "Bweeeeeeeeeeeeehehe" (the laugh on Dwarf's cd), "boobis nuber?" ("Hey, how's it going?), and "talk flergy" (for talk dirty). When I asked G... questions about the language that he and S... share, his register immediately changed and he no longer wrote in shorthand or with emoticons. He wrote instead properly structured grammatical sentences with punctuation, explaining the history of the dialogue and how it evolved because of their familiarity. When I asked him why he changed his form of communication with me, he responded by saying that I was a stranger and that S... explained to him previously that I was a university student researching something to do with linguistics. He felt that he had to change his informal conversation to formal because of who I was and what I was doing.

S... has also logged on as M.... in The Realm. She has never switched gender roles, but knows many other players that do. When she is choosing the characteristics that best describe her before she starts to play, she also has the opportunity to fill in a short biography of herself or her character. She admits to never embellishing her character because she believes it is who she is in real life. Others aren't so honest, though. Often players overdo their biographies and obviously do not fulfill the part once she starts talking with them. Players are able to access the biographies of every other player in the MUD and if they are interesting, they can request to chat with them privately. If not, they move on to the next player that interests them. S... looked for commonalties such as what a person likes to read, what music they listen to, if they have "brains," and if they have appropriate computer knowledge.

The second player that I observed was twenty-five year old E.... He logged on into The Realm as a thief with a biography that stated he 'never gets caught.' E...'s goal is not to attain wizardhood, but to pick pockets, hack and slay things in the forest, and generally cause havoc throughout The Realm. The first thing he did after choosing his characteristics was to go to the store and spend most of his money buying better quality weaponry. He picked everyone's pocket, got caught every time, and eventually made his way to the forest where he first encountered a flying bat, and then a Ninja-type player whom he challenged to a fight. E... killed the bat, and then the other character with 'throwing knives,' but was himself killed very efficiently by an oversized rat. After about 10 seconds, his character was rejuvenated, though he lost half his points due to "poor health." He returned to town to exchange the throwing knives for some different weaponry that would be more effective against the rat. While in town, his health points returned. Back in the forest, E... encountered the rat again, was killed again, and then went searching for something else to kill. He came across several huge monsters, but decided he was not equipped well enough with armor and weapons to encounter them.

It is the game, the action, that appeals to both players. S... acknowledges that there is an addictive quality to playing MUDs. She tries to limit herself to several hours a day, but knows that some of her friends play for stretches of up to twelve or more hours at a time. Time becomes a non-event when playing and, "You either get bored with it, or addicted," she added. S... admits reluctantly that her interest in The Realm is waning. More and more players are on at the same time, which means more "weirdoes" to deal with.

Although S... and E... have friends who are MUDsters, they both say that the language they use is becoming less and less "their own" as more people around them join MUDs. They also say the language is still like a secret code, but now others are able to decipher and understand more meaning from their conversation because accessing the technology is easier than ever before. Much the same way as the "hippie" jargon of the 1960s has become part of our everyday language today, the MUDsters will have to live with the fact that the success of their jargon spilling into mainstream communication is based largely on the popularity of virtual communities created by thieves, wizards, and bots like themselves.


Works Cited


Bartle, Richard. "Early MUD History." Nov. 15, 1990. [Online] http://www.ludd.luth.se/mud/aber/articles/history.html January 27, 1998.

de Wolf, Hans. "Hacker Writing Style." [Online] http://www.comedia.com/Hot/jargon_3.0/ March 8, 1998.

E... Personal Interview. 20 March, 1998. 3 April, 1998.

G... Personal Interview. 6 March, 1998.

Howard, Philip. "The Two Sides of Jargon." About Language: A Reader For Writers. 3rd edition. ed. William H. Robers and Gregorie Turgeon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992. p. 231- 238.

Raymond, Eric. "A Few Terms." The Jargon File. Version 4.0.0, July 24, 1996. [Online]. January 27, 1998.

---. "Anthropomorphization." The Jargon File. Version 4.0.0, July 24, 1996. [Online] http://www.wins.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/a/Anthropomorphization.html. January 27, 1998.

---. "Hacker Writing Style." The Jargon File. Version 4.0.0, July 24, 1996. [Online] http://www.wins.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/h/HackerWritingStyle.html. January 27, 1998.

---. "Jargon Construction." The Jargon File. Version 4.0.0, July 24, 1996. [Online] http://www.wins.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/j/jargonconstruction.html. January 27, 1998.

---. "Overgeneralization." The Jargon File. Version 4.0.0, July 24, 1996. [Online] http://www.wins.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/o/Overgeneralization.html. January 27, 1998.

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---. "Spoken Inarticulations." The Jargon File. Version 4.0.0, July 24, 1996. [Online] http://www.wins.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/s/SpokenInarticulations.html. January 27, 1998.

---. "The '-P' Convention." The Jargon File. Version 4.0.0, July 24, 1996. [Online] http://www.wins.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/p/The-Pconvention.html. January 27, 1998.

---. "This Is The Jargon File." The Jargon File. Version 4.0.0, July 24, 1996. [Online] http://www.wins.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/t/Top-orig.html. January 27, 1998.

---. "Verb Doubling." The Jargon File. Version 4.0.0, July 24, 1996. [Online] http://www.wins.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/v/verbdoubling.html. January 27, 1998.

"History of MUDs." [Online] http://www.shef.ac.uk/information_studies/studwork/groupse/t1.html. January 31, 1998.

S... Personal Interview. 6 February, 1998. 20 February, 1998. 6 March, 1998. 20 March, 1998. 3 April, 1998.

"Types of MUDs." [Online] http://www.shef.ac.uk/information_studies/studwork/groupse/muty.html. January 31, 1998.

"Welcome to MUDdom..." [Online] http://www.shef.ac.uk/information_studies/studwork/groupse/home.html. January 31, 1998.

This research paper was written for Dr. Ron Bonham's Linguistics 350, April 24, 1998 by Diane Shortt. Since this paper has been prepared in this electronic version (February, 1999), several of the 'Works Cited' links are no longer functioning. Most of the missing references are available in hardcopy, if necessary.