To start with, our language, not surprisingly, combines those of the disciplines that make up computers and writing: it's a hybrid of the rhetorics of composition studies, English studies, academic technology, and geekspeak. Like the geek world, we invent and play with language, especially when online, (the net, after all, invites playfulness). Witness this year's spamonade discussion on ACW-L. More often, and especially in journals and at conferences, we combine the jargon of rhetoric/composition and literature studies with that of computer studies: in our papers, we talk of genre and praxis, ethos and writing processes, readers as authors, and contact zones, alongside MOOs and hypermedia, bandwidth and virtual reality, HTML and Java. We fuse these different languages so routinely, we may not even think of it as a fusion, speaking of "digital discourse communities," "interactive distance education," "virtual trenches," "network logos," and the "ethnography of a virtual classroom." Some of the individual words we use are themselves hybrids: "techno-rhetoricians," "e-journal," "OWL," "syllaweb." 

In preparing this statement, I examined the titles of presentations from the last four computer and writing conferences and found a few linguistic trends. Despite our commitment to technology, the language we use makes it obvious that we are not computer scientists, but rhetoricians and literary scholars. And not just because of our fondness for the colon, but because we often think in literary terms. Consider these allusions: "The Well-storied Urn: Hypertext as Multi-plot" (Dean Barclay, 1994); "Weavers of Webs: A Portrait of Young Women on the Net" (Nancy Kaplan and Eva Farrell, 1994), "'Faith & Hope and Fear & Loathing on the Campus': An Ethnographic Study of Computers and Students in Academic Life"" (Margaret Daisley, 1994); "Overcoming the Bartleby Complex: Encouraging Students to Use Email in Their Classes" (Mary Hocks, et al, 1994); "The Loom and the Weaver: Hypertext and Homer's Odyssey" (Dene Grigar and Mindy Corwin, 1994); "All the World's a Screen" (Shannon Prosser, 1994); "Jumping Off into the Widening Gyre" (Marcia Halio, 1995); "Mimsy were the Technophobes" (Mick Doherty, 1995); "On the Other Side of the Looking Glass: a Report from the Corporate Software Worlds (Paul LeBlanc, 1996); "Correctness is All" (Ben Varner, 1997). Even without literary allusion, peeking out from our titles is training in language and rhetorical traditions, not computer science: "The Successful Online Tutor: A Case Study cum Rhetorical Analysis" (Patricia Ericsson and Tim McGee, 1996); "Digital Agoras" (Anthony Rue, 1996). 

Another trend I noticed in the last four conference programs-and that I don't remember in the previous ten-are homey metaphors: from the kitchen, "Mix 1 Part Process, 1 Part Computer Feedback, Mix Vigorously: Bon Appetit" (Clyde Warden and Yao Yi-chien, 1997); from the nursery, "Weaned away from Print" (Judith Kilbourn, 1995); from the homestead, "A Homestead on the Web" (Wayne Crawford, 1997); from next door, "Who Is My Neighbor? "(Judith Adams, 1996), and from down the block "Morphing onto a TechnoWonk without Scaring the Neighbors" (Barry Maid, et al, 1997). I include in this category allusions to domestic crafts, "The Fiber and Fabric of Instruction" (Karen D'agostino, 1997), "Origami, Batik: Folding, Resistance, and Techneluddism" (Jane Love, 1996); nursery rhymes, "Leave them Alone and They Will Come Home" (Peter Gingiss and Fred Kemp. 1995); play, "Chutes and Ladders" (Ron Shook, et al, 1994), "Playing What If?" (John Bennion, 1996), "Doom, Myst, and Dark Forces" (Gary Layne Hatch, 1997), "Tales of Composition Wizardry" (John Laroe, et al, 1994); childhood and adolescence, "Penpals Wanted" (Susan Halter, 1996); "Cruisin' the Virtual Mall" (Nancy Allen, 1996); and down on the farm sayings, "What's Good for the Goose is (Not Necessarily) Good for the Gander" (Rebecca Rickly, 1995), "Ducks to Water" (Theresa Gibney, et al, 1994). These metaphors are notable because-unlike the languages of computers, literature, or rhetoric-they come from domestic life and thus from female cultural traditions. Although the textile images inspired by the web can suggest female culture (an association promoted by some women's websites, e.g., Spinsters, Ink), computer language retains many of its associations with male cultures: first the military (as Paul Edwards observes in "The Army and the Microworld"), then the hacker underground, later the adolescent boys glued to video wargames. The violence of much of this language reflects this culture: a world of killer apps, killfiles, and Trojan Horses, where people hack, systems bomb and crash, and programs are executed, disabled, and aborted. 

Another trend was the prevalence of cautionary metaphors: "Invasion of the Body Snatchers Revisited, or Do Online Relationships Feed or Bleed Corporeal Community?" (Barbara Monroe, 1995); "Posed on the Edge of Chaos" (Janet Cross, et al, 1997); "Toto, I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore!: Dreams and Rude Awakenings in the Computers and Writing Classroom" (Kate Coffield, 1997). This strikes me as a substantial change from the language of early presentation titles. In my own 1994 presentation, reflecting on the conference's ten-year history, I noted that, despite occasional fears and failures, the community as a whole was extraordinarily forward looking-and that our language reflected this optimism. Now I still think this attitude prevails: note the hopeful beginnings in these metaphors: "WAC Learns to Fly: the Birth of an OWL" (Patricia Ericsson, 1994); WAC and WAN: Newlyweds in Cyberspace" (Karen Schwalm, 1994); "Widening the Classroom's Horizons" (Joseph Unger, 1995); "Writing on the Horizon" (John Zuern, 1997); "New Words, New Worlds" (Dene Grigar, et al, 1997). 

But coexisting with this excitement about the future is skepticism: "Strange days Indeed" (Rick Branscomb, 1997); "Accidents Will Happen" (Nick Carbone, 1997); "Limits to Hypertext (and to a Writer's Patience" (Mike Palmquist, 1997); "Who's Being Served?" (Bruce Leland, 1997); "The Conspiracy to Keep Women Out of Technology" (Dwedor Ford, 1997); "The Hidden Price of Technology" (John Ruszkiewicz, 1997); "Harassment Online (Julia Ferganchick-Neufang, 1997), "Obscenity in the Lab" (Sharon Cogdill, 1994); "The English Department Volunteer Computerist: A Study in Enthusiastic Masochism, Inevitable Burnout and What We Should Do About it" (Fred Kemp, 1996); "Help, My Students Are Killing Each Other" (C. Robert Stevens, 1996); "Separation Anxiety: Problems of Human Alienation in the Computer Classroom (Michael Davis, et al, 1994), and "So What?" (Bill Davidson, 1994). Even two discussions of the past, talks which I enjoyed hearing and don't remember as being at all grim, have ominous titles: "Autopsy: The Life and Death of Writers Workbench" (Ellen Redding, Kaler, 1994); "The Graying of Computers and Writing" (Ted Jennings, 1994). 

Perhaps we're more secure about what we do and feel freer to express doubt than we did before. Or maybe now that computers and writing is 20 years or so old, there's just been more time for experimenting-more opportunities for success and more for failure. Or maybe as a community, we're less awed by technology than we used to be. Whatever the reasons, our presentations-if the titles are to be believed-fuse hope and doubt. These attitudes may coexist on the same panel-the 1995 conference paired "Road Kill on the Information Superhighway: The Risks of the Research Paper in the Computer Age" (Chuck Etheridge) with "The Final Frontier: Launching a Multicultural Theme Course into Cyberspace" (Richard Holeton)-or in a single double entendre, Michael Day and Brad Morgan's "Taking Students for a Ride on the Internet" (1994). 

Blending opposing forces-electronic and rhetorical, academic and homey, doubtful and optimistic-we've created a rich hybrid. This coexistence of opposites is what I've seen of our language so far. Maybe it's the beginning of a rhetoric.