3 ms·

It used to be that "noob" was rude (referring to a new or incompetent person who is stupid and irritating) and "newb" was not (referring to a new person who sho

It used to be that "noob" was rude (referring to a new or incompetent person who is stupid and irritating) and "newb" was not (referring to a new person who should be treated kindly and helped along). Maybe the meanings are starting to blend together?

to3m 13y ago
Always sounds rude to me, which was my main complaint. At least it's not used in the vocative. But it's also a somewhat childish term, being a contraction (phonetically spelled - and with a foreign accent!) of a term that's already seemingly a diminutive thanks to the "-ie" suffix. Is this the sort of thing that adults do? How old are the people that use it? Probably under 20, I suspect. If that. And immature, to boot. Whatever happened to the word "beginner"? (EDIT: Ha! They changed it to "beginner", and I didn't notice until I'd posted this.) I suppose I should finish this post with, "NOW GET OFF MY LAWN".
jholman 13y ago
Maybe there was a time in your linguistic community when those words meant that. I suggest that this is not universal. I've seen lots of people in games use "newb" in a profanity-laden attack, and I've seen people people say things like "c'mon, don't grief the noobs, pick on someone your own size". What's the difference between "geek" and "nerd"? Ask five language communities, get five different answers. Or ten answers, if you ask the same five language communities again two years later. When you use slang in a new speech community, you need to expect that to your listener, it probably doesn't mean what you think it means, especially in fine nuance like you're claiming exists between "newb" and "noob" (or "n00b" or "newbie" or "nooby" or "noobie" or ...)
- itsybitsycoder 13y ago
  Maybe not universal, but certainly very common. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newbie#Variants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newbie#Variants
  - jholman 13y ago
    Uh. The relevant sentence of that WP article has, as its citation, a Forbes article about gamers. You take Forbes seriously, as an authority on gamer culture?
    - itsybitsycoder 13y ago
      You were making it sound as though this were some niche thing that only happened in my particular social group. I was simply showing that this isn't the case. It's not as though there's likely to be peer-reviewed studies on this, but here's some more links, if you'd like: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Noobs%20vs.%20Newbs&defid=4307260 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Noobs%20vs.%2... http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Noob http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Noob http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20060823 http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20060823
- saraid216 13y ago
  s/noob/child/g

to3m 13y ago

Always sounds rude to me, which was my main complaint. At least it's not used in the vocative. But it's also a somewhat childish term, being a contraction (phonetically spelled - and with a foreign accent!) of a term that's already seemingly a diminutive thanks to the "-ie" suffix. Is this the sort of thing that adults do? How old are the people that use it? Probably under 20, I suspect. If that. And immature, to boot. Whatever happened to the word "beginner"? (EDIT: Ha! They changed it to "beginner", and I didn't notice until I'd posted this.) I suppose I should finish this post with, "NOW GET OFF MY LAWN".

jholman 13y ago

Maybe there was a time in your linguistic community when those words meant that. I suggest that this is not universal. I've seen lots of people in games use "newb" in a profanity-laden attack, and I've seen people people say things like "c'mon, don't grief the noobs, pick on someone your own size". What's the difference between "geek" and "nerd"? Ask five language communities, get five different answers. Or ten answers, if you ask the same five language communities again two years later. When you use slang in a new speech community, you need to expect that to your listener, it probably doesn't mean what you think it means, especially in fine nuance like you're claiming exists between "newb" and "noob" (or "n00b" or "newbie" or "nooby" or "noobie" or ...)

itsybitsycoder 13y ago
Maybe not universal, but certainly very common. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newbie#Variants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newbie#Variants
- jholman 13y ago
  Uh. The relevant sentence of that WP article has, as its citation, a Forbes article about gamers. You take Forbes seriously, as an authority on gamer culture?
  - itsybitsycoder 13y ago
    You were making it sound as though this were some niche thing that only happened in my particular social group. I was simply showing that this isn't the case. It's not as though there's likely to be peer-reviewed studies on this, but here's some more links, if you'd like: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Noobs%20vs.%20Newbs&defid=4307260 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Noobs%20vs.%2... http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Noob http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Noob http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20060823 http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20060823
saraid216 13y ago
s/noob/child/g