[Air-l] Genealogy of the term "Netspeak"

[Lauren M. Squires]

Dear AIR (and CMC-SLING),

Does anyone know of a good reference on the origin of terms like
"Netspeak," "webspeak," or "chatspeak"?  I'm not looking for
information on when/where/how Netspeak itself came from, or what its
definition is, but rather when/where/how the term came into currency.
It seems that David Crystal sort of popularized the term/concept
"Netspeak" amongst academics and the public in his book Language and
the Internet (2001), but I also know that it's documented as being in
use several years prior to that (and I unfortunately don't have the
book on-hand to check whether he gives a history or not).  I'm
wondering whether particular online communities or sites began using
the term and when that may have happened.

Any pointers - whether to articles that discuss the history of such
terms, archived websites that include them, or just personal
impressions of when they may have started gaining speed - would be
greatly appreciated. You can reply on or offlist, depending on whether
you think it's an interesting discussion to continue list-wide (I
can't really judge how many people will care about such things!).

Best,
Lauren

-- 
lauren m. squires
  lx: http://polyglotconspiracy.net
  cmc: http://sociocmc.blogspot.com
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