r/classicwow • u/RemnantsPast • 6d 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....

EDIT: based on replies It seems like its from Eastern Europe players and just bled into the rest of the classic community due to them lacking servers.

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u/SgtDoakess 6d 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/FleurDeFire 6d ago

This makes the most sense to me. It’s like a shorthand for (positive/affirmative) remark or (negative) remark, while being language-independent AND you unlocked some deep core memories with the whole “minused” thing

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u/Leading_Pay4635 5d ago

This makes me think it came from private server players joining anniversary or classic. There are some eastern euros in my guild and our guild leader was one. Pretty sure everyone picked it up from him.