Ever heard of convenience? There shouldn’t be any difficulty
assuming it to be of the prime importance. Surely people would disagree but
with most of them it’s true and they know it!
Picture a boy’s room in his late teens. You’ll find books
spilling out from under the bed and from the other side of the bed too. It’s
because the way he reads while sleeping. Pulls the book out from the underneath
and lets them lie there till the time he wants to read them again. You’ll see
things haywire, scattered, and most of them lying beneath the dirty laundry,
which not to mention is all over the place. Whatsoever the case, things have
been like that since ages, be it teenage or old-age.
We thrive on convenience.
We want things easy and manifested. Hard work? No thanks.
Thinking? Thank you very much but no thanks again. Writing? ‘Dude what are you?
A grandpa? I’ve got my tablet to type on!’ We work for our convenience, elders would
deny that, but they too do it without even realizing it. It’s a sub-conscious human
tendency. And with time the convenience
craving has engulfed so many things we can hardly imagine.
Come to think of the language and it strikes me how profound
our tendency towards choosing convenient typing has ruffled the way we write.
You surely are aware of the statistics regarding our exposure to the media. You
even know that most of the media the teenagers and even those in the early 20s
are exposed to is of the social kind. Given the tech savvy elders we shouldn’t
undermine them either.
‘Hru?’ If you know
what it means (you can even drop the question mark there, its ‘?’, in case you
wonder) then you have either been a victim or the cause. In either way you are
contributing. But, I’m somehow sure you’ve known more than that. Lol, ttyl, nm,
rofl, tc, gn, gr8, f9, lmao, kewl and
god knows what?
I don’t have a problem with that. But it’s annoying to
witness the amount of acronyms people use in order to save some time. And
what’s more annoying is the other bunch of people who even respond to this with
the similar acrostic manner. I wonder when this began. It was all when the
internet industry boomed in the late 90’s and IM(instant message) was the ‘in’
thing.
I sometimes wonder as to why I feel bothered with it. Sure,
I’ve read articles regarding this. But it’s not just them that have insinuated
this anger against this practice. I understand the annoyance felt is not superficial
but boundless. I’ll let the therapist
work it out for me. Clearly, it shouldn’t bother anyone if someone chooses to
talk in a particular way unless it’s abusive or prying. Freedom of choice isn’t
it?
There are a few people I know some years back discouraged
this practice. Yesterday I sent one of them a chat on the messenger to which
she replied ‘gr8 to c u…!!!’ and I wondered
what happened to the English language? It was disheartening.
Other day I talked to a friend online, while leaving he said
“bye..cya..tc..gn” and I wondered does he really mean it? If he did, would he
not go through the gruesome task of typing the complete words instead of finishing
it off as if it was a compelling ritual?
I talk to many old friends online as I find internet the
best way to keep touch as they are all located all over the country and some out
of it too but it’s difficult to come to terms with the kind of formal chat they
put. It all appears scripted and it has to end with the ‘bye..cya..tc..gn’.
Then there are these smileys, or should I call them
emoticons. Ask yourselves clearly, would you use a crying emoticon if you were
really that sad. Will that sadness allow you to be so picturesque? And if it
would then what kind of sorrow would it be? Is it worth labeling-sad?
While chatting with someone you want to laugh, you ‘lol’ or
‘lmao’ or ‘rofl’. I wonder if you are on the floor, or you just say it because
you want to please me. Has it never happened that you just typed
‘roflmao’(that’s a derived form, I’m sure you know) and you are not even
smiling to what the person just said. Has it never occurred to you as to how
mechanical and inhuman you’ve turned or should I say the internet has turned
you.
Take a look at yourself and evaluate the kind of language
you use on the social media(no offence meant). How concise and shallow it is. Remember the last
time you typed or read something sensible from your friend that affected and
urged you to reflect for the minimum of a minute? I’m sure there isn’t plenty.
On the flipside, there are other arguments to this
discussion. Time is important and no one has it, or should I say claims, not to
have it. Texting has become our culture and though the smartphone these days
provide a ‘qwerty’ keypad we choose acronyms. They say; as far as it’s
understood.
Apart from that, there’s a minimum character setup. You fail
that and there appears a prompt, “You’ll have to be more clever.” On the
internet there’s one major criterion depending on which it is decided whether
an article would be read or not, that is its length. The longer the article the
less is its readability quotient.
Enough said, Survival of the fittest is a very early
phenomenon humans got their hands on. So there’s a war on. Between the authentic and the derived language
and stealthily but steadily the latter is winning. We are choosing it. And it won’t be long enough
when the coming generations would witness ‘1ce der ws a f9 villag nd it ws 4evr
ruind wid da kinda langage dey used’ as the commencing lines of their textbook chapters.
For the love of language, I wish not live that long!
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed are solely mine. Feel free to present counter views, challenge me or even tell me that I'm a completely ignorant dimwit in the comments section. You live in a free country and so do I. Ergo, I have the right to delete your displeasing (I decide) comments. So try and be polite.
