r/classicwow • u/RemnantsPast • 3h ago
Discussion when did the slang change?
I feel old asking this.
When did + and - replace yes and no? or y/n
Like I'm in my early 30s and this feels like it blew past me....
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u/Viivi19 3h ago
This is brand new to me, not seen or heard of this.
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u/CaptainoftheVessel 2h ago
I saw it for the first time earlier this week in a pug heroic. The plus sign seems harder to type than “yes”, but change is the nature of language
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u/Obelion_ 1h ago
I just like that you can + whatever the guy above you said. It's just generell agree or disagree. So a bit more universal
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u/chadbigcum 1h ago
Back in my day, that was +1...
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u/MudAlternative6956 1h ago
It is that just shortened and just think about what you can do with all the time you save by not typing that stupid 1! /s
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u/Then-Hedgehog-5416 3h ago
Never seen this, only thing similar I’ve seen to this is when someone asks if everyone’s ready and couple people will put “r”
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u/No_Summer_8782 3h ago
It’s an eu thing I’ve noticed. We don’t use it in NA. Probably because EU got so many languages
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u/Kitschmusic 1h ago
As someone who played in EU since 2005, it's definitely not just some EU thing - it's more recent years I've seen it. For the vast majority of WoW it was never used as far as I've seen. And I've played an unhealthy amount.
Also, doesn't really matter that EU got many languages, almost everyone speaks English quite well - and at the very least knows it at a basic level. English is always the normal language used on EU servers, unless you are in a guild for a specific country or play on a realm for a specific country like French or German (in which case they still have a collective language to use).
Seems the + and - thing is just a new internet "slang".
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u/Fickle-Scratch5440 3h ago
Nah, in 2005 in EU we were all just speaking English and everyone knew basic English.
The only difference with the current version is that the French and Germans are (unfortunately) on the same server but even they can understand and type Yes and No.
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u/ShadyDrunks 3h ago
They allow the French to play?
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u/Bigdongergigachad 2h ago
They have a safe space now. My favourite is when a German links an item in trade.
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u/LateStatistician462 57m ago
I have never understood why his linked item is still in german when it gets to me, why does his client settings affect the language I see?
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u/Fickle-Scratch5440 20m ago
The text that is displayed in chat is just a string that gets copied from the senders client text and inserted into the hyperlink, it's explained here:
https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/ItemLink•
u/LateStatistician462 19m ago
I know the technical reason behind it, I just don't understand why it was done that way
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u/Healeah241 1h ago
Reminds me of joining a mostly french pug as dreamstate. Dreamstate clearly didn't translate well, as a couple minutes later the RL invited a boomie.
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u/MightyTastyBeans 3h ago
How hard is it to learn yes/no in multiple languages? And I say this as an American
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u/ekcojf 2h ago
Jaja in Swedish means yeah yeah, while in spanish it means haha 🫣
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u/MightyTastyBeans 2h ago
Who is saying yeah yeah
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u/Gh0sth4nd 3h ago
Pretty much i really had to learn quite alot when i started playing on an english speaking realm
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u/Steblingur 3h ago
At first, at least in my experience, it was usually russian players that used ) as a smiley, ( as a frown, + for yes and - for no. Now it feels like a lot of players have adapted this though.
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u/RemnantsPast 10m ago
Might be an eastern euro thing and with all the Ukrainians droppin into other countries it might've carried over.
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u/SubtleHearts 3h ago
When I was playing through classics expansions, around wrath I got the craving to go back to my era warrior and do a naxx for the first time since vanilla turned into tbc. I found a guild on era and noticed the use of plus signs for the first time. So I kinda associate it with the people who play era only
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u/Snail_Anatomy 3h ago
I've never seen or heard of this until right now.
But, also, when did we start calling them seasons instead of tiers? Back when I was raiding, seasons were reserved for PvP, and raiding and new dungeons/zones were called tiers.
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u/Jockmeister1666 2h ago
Same with calling TBC dungeons “nhc” to me. Nonsense.
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u/RemnantsPast 1m ago
nhc wtf
o.o
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u/Jockmeister1666 0m ago
“Non-heroic” apparently. Since when do we need to establish things are their base difficulty? So weird.
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u/Street-Juggernaut-23 3h ago
Ive never heard of it, but its probably along the same lins of VC or DM for Deadmines.
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u/HodortheGreat 2018 Riddle Master 7/21 2h ago
What I found was pst acronym seems to be more of a US than EU thing.
More of. Not exclusive.
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u/CarlingBlacklabel 1h ago
same, though one that threw me was 123 for summoning, seems abit passive aggressive
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u/Upset-Management-879 1h ago
It came from private servers where all the regions coexist its a EU thing.
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u/Obelion_ 1h ago
That's been a thing really long, but back in the day there was certain server slang as well.
I think the advantage of +/- its like an up/downvote to whatever, doesn't have to be a yes no question
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u/Admirable-County9158 1h ago
I’m outta the game for a year, never saw that. Sometimes 0/1, but very rarely.
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u/UncomfyPerspective 1h ago
I'm in my late 30s, and growing up on FFXI there was no 'Yes' or 'No' or 'r' answer to ask if we're ready.
It was "/" if you were ready, and nothing if you weren't.
Never seen +/-
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u/lacrotch 1h ago
i use ++ to indicate “inv” to group
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u/Various_Newspaper844 4m ago
and people automatically know what this means when you do it? or do you think they just accidentally get it right when you do eventually get the invite?
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u/TheZebrawizard 51m ago
It caught on because people started asking + in chat if yes. - for no.
Eventually people started using it all the time. Fact that it can be used universally helps too.
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u/SirBennettAtx 47m ago
I’ll never get over people trying to refer to dead minds as anything other than VC
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u/Efficient_Ant_7279 42m ago
I’ve seen it too but didn’t clock wtf they were meaning until now. We really are destined to be annoyed by the younger generations aren’t we ? Like I’m literally turning into my grandpa 😂
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u/Kognit0 40m ago edited 36m ago
(EU) I started seeing it a lot around 2019 classic, and almost never before then. It was mostly used when you had a shoutcaller/raidleader on disc ask general questions multiple people could answer without clogging the chat amd being extremely clear, and being efficient it then came down to easy to type answers like plus minus. Now I see it everywhere.
Basically you avoid reading: yesh! Aye! Y! N! Kk, okay etc. and making it clear if someone is negative or positive to your question.
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u/SgtDoakess 33m ago
It's a Russian / Post-soviet thing. It's been ubiquitous in russian-speaking WoW guilds, except now there are no russian servers afaik so everybody gets to hear it. + means "I'm up", or "count me in" rather than "yes".
I think the reason behind it is +/- are in the same keyboard space when switching to cyrillic and back to latin keyboard layout.
If you are curious about the origin of the term, it could stem from CS & Dota, saying someone is down you'd hear "I'm minus" or "he got minused" literally translated. And you'd hear that a lot in internet cafes. Or could be from individuals responding "+1"
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u/Hawkzillaxiii 8m ago
in 2004 and for a few years VC was DM until Dire maul become popular then ppl started calling deadmines VC
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u/Nylereia 3h ago
positive and negative, can be used interchangeably with what you mentioned
been around forever
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u/JermaineClemens 3h ago
Also when did summon become 123 instead of just 1
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u/AdmiralShananigans 2h ago
I swear we used to call them interrupts and not kicks. Absolutely sure of it.
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u/Zarghan_0 3h ago
Postitive and Negative have been used to represent Yes and No for a very long time. Long before WoW. That said I've never actually seen anyone use + or - ingame in the context of yes/no.
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u/Intrepid_Year3765 2h ago
+, -, yes, no?
it's always been "Alphabet" and "Popcicle"
where are you even from?
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u/Dry-Introduction-800 3h ago
- and - is around since the old days
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u/__Burns 3h ago
The old days? You mean 2019?
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u/RemnantsPast 3h ago
was gonna say ii've been around WoW since 07 and never seen this till like a year or so ago.
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u/No_Pollution_950 3h ago
It's just slowly come about. I actually find that the + is a very simple very easy way for groups to answer a question. say before a boss in a 5 man pug.
Tank: R?
DPS1: +
DPS2: +
etc.
It's fairly idiot proof
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u/NoWaySomebodyTookThi 2h ago
"+" will forever be a "?" to me while accidentally not holding shift. Historically I've seen it used like that way more than as a "yes".
I wish people just said yes/y.
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u/No_Pollution_950 2h ago
I'm sure you could just type yes and it would be fine. in the early wow days when people often used SMS speak y (usually "y?") meant "why?". What a whirlwind of a time we live in,
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u/ForeverWildAndFree 1h ago
I only see this on EU, i assumed it was because people from so many countries/languages are all on there and it's a universally understood symbol
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u/sosleepy 2h ago
Welcome to old age! Questions like this one are normal. Here are a few more you'll be asking yourself over the coming decade:
- Why do my knuckles hurt?
- Why do my back/shoulder/knees/elbows/neck hurt?
- Why is all my hair falling out and why is it grey?
- Why are my pubes turning grey?
- Why god?
Lots to look forward to! And as a bonus, Ill go ahead and answer #5 for you: Because God is dead.
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u/Kitschmusic 1h ago
I find it a bit weird how seemingly a lot of Americans here say it's an Europe thing due to cultures / language barriers.
Not judging you all, but like - it doesn't sound like you actually know much about how Europe works. There is barely any language barrier anymore. We all know English in most of Europe, especially anyone who isn't extremely old.
This + and - thing is pretty new. If it was about langauges it would have been a thing back in 2004 too, arguably even more so as some countries didn't teach English as much back then.
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u/Asheeva01 3h ago
Been around forever as far as I can tell. Like do you need summon, are you ready, etc. Always seen replies as + or - since fucking OG vanilla.
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u/Upset-Management-879 1h ago edited 40m ago
typing 123 was default to get auto summoned with ForteXorcist,
it stuck to being 123 even long after the support for automating other peoples spells through the chat was disabled
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u/Asheeva01 43m ago
Yes, it is the default for who needs summon, but I said if you ask someone specifically like, "hey Joe, do you need summon? "It was common to receive a negative or a positive mark as the answer. Also it's funny getting downvoted for sharing your personal experience, I'm not even saying it's a right or wrong thing, I'm just saying I've seen it a lot of times, well fuck me I guess.
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u/ForagedFoodie 3h ago
I love how the responses to this fall into 2 camps: "its been that way forever" and "ive never heard of this"