Saturday, April 28, 2007

Language

Or 'slanguage' as SMS text is now called.

I saw an interesting item on slanguage this morning and its effects on modern day language. One woman - I can't remember her name - said it was interesting that, for all the abbreviations, kids using text language had a good grasp of grammar.

A college English teacher said he'd yet to see the language in his class, but it would be unacceptable. But some high school papers were being turned in with the abbreviated language.

For those of who are... not of the text era, deciphering text can be laborious:

cul8r is simple: see you later.
whatru ^2?: what are you up to? starts to get complicated.
wru? tmbtam: where are you? Text me back tomorrow morning. Well, you can see the increasing difficulty. Whole conversations are carried on like this.

Do I like this stuff? Um... it takes a while to decipher, but it's here to stay and it serves a purpose given telcos charge by the letter or word. The English language is an ever evolving one, but will it take over the world?

Can you imagine picking up a book written totally in slanguage? The next two or three generations may think nothing of it; the generation I belong to would be horrified, and only read a book like that with an sms dictionary beside them.

I can see it coming; but only in a minor, alternative fiction way. After that who knows?

poahf, icbw, knim?

2 comments:

Pandababy said...

Oh Jaye! I'm laughing out loud here at my computer screen. My self image as one of the timeless generation has just been shattered. (hey- I luv my ipod, I blog, don't call me 'old'.)

"poahf, icbw, knim"?

I'm totally flummoxed!

Please don't leave me in the dark. Post a tranlation tomorrow for those of us who don't do text messages.

Jaye Patrick said...

K. Here's the translation:

Put On A Happy Face, It Could Be Worse, Know What I Mean?

LOL