flat affect and semantics in Communication 2.0

The exchange between us was brief:

me: I can still give you a ride there if desired.
him: thx, I'll be going straight there anyway
me: Kk

I didn't even mean to capitalize the first "K" of "Kk", my communicator did it for me. I thought about what my reply meant and had a McLuhanesque realization that, as with any new medium a new variety of discourse is created. And the affordances of text messaging, like every other new technology are slightly different than those that preceded it.

What does "kk" mean and is it different than "ok"? I believe there is a difference, both subtle and useful.

A lexicographer would probably point to the "kk" having entered the lexicon of quick messaging as it was quicker to type on limited keyboards. While that origin may well be true, "kk" has since acquired a new semantic which hearkens back to the earliest days of remote communication: simple acknowledgement that a communication has been received and understood.



There are probably ways to signal this is smoke signals, semaphores, Morse code and, for all I know sign language. But aviation and military radio voice protocol is easier to talk about. Radio voice protocol was invented by people who had to communicate terribly important information over terribly noisy channels, this was made even more difficult when – for technological reasons – the initial consonant might not even be transmitted turning "difficult" into "ifficult". This is one reason why the elements of the English International Phonetic Alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.) are all more than one syllable long. On wired text communication, receipt of a message was often acknowledge by sending "R" for "received". When translated to radio voice protocol this became "Roger".

There are two common uses of this word in protocol. "Roger That" and "Roger Wilco", where the former is often just "Roger". "Roger That" simply means "received and understood" or ACK as I'll call it here. "Roger Wilco" has been variously translated as "received, understood, and will comply" Clearly when orders or instructions are being transmitted, there can be a vast difference between the meanings of those two statements: ACK means only that, ACK and will comply says that you can also expect that I will execute those instructions which is pretty vital in air traffic control. ("Roger Wilco" can be abbreviated in actual use when compliance is assumed by both parties).

In common speech "Ok" can mean ACK but it has also been used to signify agreement, obedience, defiance, patronization, and myriad other sentiments depending on context, tone, and other cues. The meaning of "Ok" is thereby overloaded and ambiguous. "Kk" being of relatively new coinage appears to have absorbed little of the connotations of Ok and has returned to the less ambiguous ACK.