I must have missed the evolution of the English language. Trapped in my world of puns and punctuation, grammar and tense, I must have missed the plethora of changes that have swept the language over the years. I recently joined an online group where the average age of the participants is close to 20. Besides making me feel like I am pushing the age envelope (and I am not even 30 yet), I felt like a linguistically challenged kid in a class where the language of instruction is Latin. Was it not enough that I am forced to go the 'internets' each time I come across IIRC being used in an e-mail, or wonder what GMTA stands for, that I am forced to adapt fo the next level altogether? Sample some of this:
Dont understand wht iz deir prob???.I dont fink ne1 must b hvin ne probs wid me rite other den sum ppl??.
Ya actually der waz an monkey typin 4 me.Coz u knw ppl like u can only understand monkey language see no 1 else xpect u understood d language so i m gonna give d monkey a bonus 2day tell him wht a GR8 job hez doin!!!.Thiz Language iz specially 4 all so ppl in d Comm plzz use dis Language!!!!.
If d Mod doesnt hv a Prob den i dunno wassup wid d otherz.:-(
Ya i knw pri m wid u ppl hv been vry rude in dis comm
As I stared at my screen in distinct disbelief, reading through the lines multiple times, I realized that my style of communication may become anachronistic one day(if it already isn't), where a wide eyed android one hundred years from now will stumble upon this blog post and have an automated service 'translate' this into the language of the day. A hybrid between German pronounciation and English words, with the exclamation mark becoming one of the ten new alphabets with which to form new words, emoticons the new vowels and numerals substituted for every common occurence they can be used for.
Unless, I evolve, and attempt I did. For about three words I attempted to recreate the magic and mystery and essence of this confounding form of expression. And then I gave up. Here's the sad remnant of my attempt: Thiz blog rulz!
Dont understand wht iz deir prob???.I dont fink ne1 must b hvin ne probs wid me rite other den sum ppl??.
Ya actually der waz an monkey typin 4 me.Coz u knw ppl like u can only understand monkey language see no 1 else xpect u understood d language so i m gonna give d monkey a bonus 2day tell him wht a GR8 job hez doin!!!.Thiz Language iz specially 4 all so ppl in d Comm plzz use dis Language!!!!.
If d Mod doesnt hv a Prob den i dunno wassup wid d otherz.:-(
Ya i knw pri m wid u ppl hv been vry rude in dis comm
As I stared at my screen in distinct disbelief, reading through the lines multiple times, I realized that my style of communication may become anachronistic one day(if it already isn't), where a wide eyed android one hundred years from now will stumble upon this blog post and have an automated service 'translate' this into the language of the day. A hybrid between German pronounciation and English words, with the exclamation mark becoming one of the ten new alphabets with which to form new words, emoticons the new vowels and numerals substituted for every common occurence they can be used for.
Unless, I evolve, and attempt I did. For about three words I attempted to recreate the magic and mystery and essence of this confounding form of expression. And then I gave up. Here's the sad remnant of my attempt: Thiz blog rulz!
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21 comments:
Da post made me sml :) :)
LOL..wad da hell appened neway??:) outcasted huh?
I've got to ask...what online group is it?!
Something like this happened to me sometime back..
I was surfing and I came across this literature-oriented site that had these live chat rooms that taught English.
Good God! The language the participants were speaking(writing) jarred out my senses. I then realized that there are people who have still not adapted themselves to a language like English. Coming to think of it, there are top executives that I have come across in various industries, who cannot manage to speak a good language. Atleast grammatically correct language.
Thanks to the focus on career that they have, that has got them to such heights, their language skills are just pathetic.
Sorry I had forgotten to add something earlier, so I had to delete my comment and re-post it.
"I recently joined an online group where the average age of the participants is close to 20."
Stay with your generation buddy!!:)..
and yea i share someone rtd2's curiosity...wat grp?...
@Shreemoyee: Thanks
@Rtd2, Pallavi, Frissko: The group is hardly the point of the post, it simply served to highlight the humor I was trying to portray (which unfortunately seems to have been lost in this larger question). This isn't a cult I am attempting to join to discover my teens :-) Its just an orkut community.
@Keerti Prasad: Your instance is scarier, because at least the people aren't in their teens. God save the language.
@
Ya, I get confused too and feel outdated when people write like that!
@Parth: *guffaw* i had a feeling it might be orkut - now why don't you add someone like katz? she even sends rude messages to language-challenged people. :P
who tlk lk ths as if th eng lng was lobotmzd.
Unrelated to this post, you are tagged to write a book review (I don't care much for tags but since this one is about books ...:) - http://books-and-me.blogspot.com/2007/07/book-review-meme-darjeeling.html
U hv 2 b te gr8test xpert wid wrds
2 knw wat thse ppl write.
(Interestingly, I have observed Indians are the most guilty of such poor english usage)
enuf said. got 2 get bk to wk!
@Jyothsna: Join the club :-)
@Nocturne: Boy, are you the one's everyone's scared off, on orkut? :-)
@RS: Ok, will take a look
@Adheet: You seem to have mastered the language, for sure :-) You may have a point that it may be adapted largely by Indians. I wonder what form other countries use.
the very same.
on the other hand, i've also been known to stalk the linguistic ones.
wowww!!!!!!thz 1z a gud 1.
I lrnt a lotzzz of shrtctzz :P :P :P
That's why I packed my bags and left Orkut, I found most everyone was writing in a language that was completely foreign to me! I shudder to think of the impact of the internet on English in the long run.
btw, I like hw u rite man, gr8 stuff! ;)
@PD, Lotus Reads: Thanks :-)
@Nocturne: How many victims thus far? :-)
I believe this malaise starts from various IM/chat clients where typing fast is the need of the hour. Indians have this problem because plenty of them surf the net from cybercafes which charge you by the hour. For what it's worth, I do not recollect people writing in language like this ten years ago when mail and chat was much less prevalent.
ne way u luk at it, 1 things 4 sure tho...dat u hv 2 b here 2 believe how ppl talk lk thiz!
@Adheet: But what about the kids who are getting their first PCs now? I am sure bandwidth is no longer a problem. But you may have a point. Maybe SMS is. If there are length restrictions, you may be inclined to innovate.
hehe. I'd heard sms's to blame. Quite an innovation this (or degradation, depending on perspective), tho I must confess it takes a deal more memory cycles to process. 'suppose we're no longer the gen that matters.
Interesting topic parth. I like the way you write about anything and everything under the sun...
Another thing thats going to take you by surprise, is the use of abbreviations that the new generation seems to use. Do you have any idea what AAMOF means???
check out this link to know about it.
http://www.missingkids.com/adcouncil/pdf/lingo/onlinelingo.pdf
I am shocked...
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