After the advent of cellphones, SMS language came along and so did the extermination of English grammar. I get the logic behind SMS language but why anyone would put in additional efforts to capitalize every alternate letter is beyond my comprehension.
I blame it on our youth who are incapable of finding their own identity and hence try to ape the west. Typing 'ma' instead of 'my' won't make you American. Contrary to what you pseudos may think, it does not make you sound like a rap artist either.
Don't be ashamed of who you are and where you're from. Don't be a poser. Keep it natural.
@ShenoyChinmay
@Fooljhadi
What irks me more is modifying normal words in a miserable attempt to sound 'cool'. Believe me, 'kewl' is NOT cool. There is no rational explanation for typing in this disastrous manner.The sole purpose of SMS language was to reduce texting time. You're typing the same number of alphabets so you're not achieving that either!
My sincere request, 'Puhleez' grow up and get a reality check or else, i'm 'sowwie' to say, but one fine day people will throw 'Rawks' at you and then only 'Gawd' can save you.
Yet another annoying aspect, excessive punctuations.
Do you want to sound like you're on an adrenaline rush ?
What difference would it make if you typed "Hey!" instead of "Hey!!!!!!!!!!!"
It just makes you sound unnecessarily excited and personally, I find it kind of creepy.
Using a zillion dots is also vexatious. An ellipsis consists of three dots. It's supposed to indicate a short pauses or breaks in the writer's train of thought not a mini coma.
And finally coming to chat abbreviations, I know you're in a hurry but you're not exactly the busiest person in the world. Why butcher the English language?
And finally coming to chat abbreviations, I know you're in a hurry but you're not exactly the busiest person in the world. Why butcher the English language?
It won't kill you to write 'what's up' instead of 'Ssup' or 'wazza'.I can still fathom using it if you don't have a qwerty keypad. I honestly don't see the laboriousness in typing a complete, grammatically correct word when all the alphabets lay right in front of you.
I blame it on our youth who are incapable of finding their own identity and hence try to ape the west. Typing 'ma' instead of 'my' won't make you American. Contrary to what you pseudos may think, it does not make you sound like a rap artist either.Don't be ashamed of who you are and where you're from. Don't be a poser. Keep it natural.
@ShenoyChinmay
@Fooljhadi
My sentiments exactly! Nice piece.
ReplyDelete"Kewl" write up..:)
ReplyDeleteThank you very much!
ReplyDeleteAgreed on all counts...good one
ReplyDeleteYou r right why kill joy of expressing good language
ReplyDeleteI completely disagree with you.
ReplyDeleteYou just get annoyed because you haven't yet "got it".
And no one is trying to be "american" as you suggest.
I think that It is the matter of concern for the sender and the receiver.
Believe me, I too was surprised like when I started texting, but what can I say, everyone has their own style.
Satish you are an idiot. Don't be so sensitive to criticism of your 'style'. The fact of the matter is people like you are wannabe yankees. Thaz ma kewl view!!!!!....?????////.....Ravi Teja
ReplyDeleteAmazing stuff with the blog.I love this article!Thank God Shashi Tharoor Tweeted about it :) Great work guys
ReplyDeleteWonderful Article !!
ReplyDeleteInteresting read, but to think - the reason English has survived so long while most other languages dither away into oblivion is that is that its is an adaptive language, it grows with you, and does not stay stagnant.
ReplyDeleteYes, I image it would really irritate an Englishman to see his mother tongue being bashed beyond recognition, but we have to understand that English, belongs to all of us now and this is just English's way of evolving so that it stays relevant to the current/latest generation. After all it is the survival of the fittest.
Just my view on the topic.
I think people "tAlK liKe tHiS" because of a reason that is simliar to why people use fictitious numbers like zillion which are not defined; people proclaim that bad grammer will lead to ones stoning which can only be stopped by God; use words like 'fathom' or 'laboriousness' instead of 'imagine' or 'point'; and brand people 'pseuodos' and urge them to 'keep it natural'.
ReplyDeleteTo impress others.
Dear Anonymous,
DeleteLet me introduce you to something known as a hyperbole. Unfortunately, I do not have the right statistics to tell you how many people talk in such a manner. The main reason people read and try to improve their vocabulary is so that they can actually use it! If you see, the rest of my post is highly informal and I apologize if the vocabulary of an 18 year old was too heavy for you. (That's how old I am)
This post basically targets a younger crowd who are going the KEWL way and need to find their own identity.
worst is RIP and not rest in peace !
ReplyDeleteRIP Mr X ...seriously?
I think languages evolve with time...what becomes popular is accepted as correct..
ReplyDeleteBy the way, it is "every alternate letter", not "every alternate alphabet". A string of 26 letters makes the English alphabet. The irony of this post stares hard at our face.
ReplyDelete@Mohsin Ahmed, I have absolutely no idea about which point in the post you're talking abou
DeleteYou are slightly misinformed. The SMS language developed to squeeze a long message in the 150-185 (depending on network) character limit the original message system had.One can observe a similar phenomenon on Twitter which has a similar character limit. Nonetheless, all your points still stand.
ReplyDelete@NASH,glad to see a PhD student comment on my post. Well, even with the advent of BBM and WhatsApp, people have not really started using the normal and grammatically correct language.Agreed,that some cases its about squeezing the letters but what do you have to say about the excessive '!!!!!!' and the 'Heyyyyyyyy'? Not to forget <3, <3,<3.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete:-) adapt!
ReplyDeleteKewl is definitely not cool, and omg may gawd save us from that. I agree to most of things mentioned in this post. But, all of it doesn't seem correct. Well, I would have given more respect if the post had been syntactically and semantically perfect. For example, as someone did mention, it is not supposed to be "capitalize every alternate alphabet". It would actually mean A's, b's, C's, d's, etc. (and I pray "etc." is acceptable). I believe, contextually, you mean alternative letters of a word. Is it so? Or do you still mean "alternate alphabets"?
ReplyDeleteNow coming the "what's up". It actually is an informal usage of "up". If it is "informal" so what is the big deal in playing with it? I see no harm in "informalizing" an informal expression. Though, I agree it sometimes is quite irritating to some people. Funniest thing about "what's up" is that some people even think that "what's up" means "how are you".Even the usage of "what's up" makes it seem as you are trying to "ape the west". Why not just say "what are you doing" or something similar to "what's up" the very simple "what are you up to" when all the alphabets
lay right in front of you.
Some Englishmen do abhor the "Americanized" version of English.
When saying "Don't be ashamed of who you are and where
you're from. Don't be a poser. Keep it natural.", well, my dear, you sound like those traditionalists, whom you may call "narrrow-minded", who will scold you for using any language, including English, apart from the mother toungue. I'm not saying some the usage that you are pointing to is correct, as I myself detest some of the usages.
One more thing. Well, someone did mention that the reason for shortening of words in sms (and tweets) is the limit of characters (which includes "alphabets", punctuations, white spaces and special characters). And, even if you shorten the words, you can still keep your sentences syntactically and semantically correct. Also, I would want the author to look up the word "shorthand notation", which has not yet butchered any language yet, but has lived along the languages (including English) for ages. I would also like mention something called "archaic words". My dear, shakespeare wouldn't have liked the way you write/speak English.
When coming to excessive usage of "puncutation marks", well, my dear, when you are communicating with a friend, and being informal I think you won't prefer being too verbose to express all your emotions and showing the tone and mood. I would really like to know how can one differently express a simple "hey!" and a " 'hey' with a lot of excitement where you are in mood for fun". Even though we have emoticons (icons to show emotions), the written communication still lacks the expression/mood/tone/emotions. Yes, zillions of exclamation marks and full stops sometimes does seem creepy, but as a friend I would definitely use it on you just to irritate you. And I hope you get the joke, because I believe you can't exactly imagine what expression showed on my face when that thought crossed my mind. Among friends, I still think it is all right.
Well, I'm not completely against your views nor am I advocating the improper usages. Also, I would like to point out that to save space (to fit into character-limit) and sometimes time (you may have all the time but everybody doesn't), it is fine to use the shortened sms-type notation as long as you keep the grammar intact.
And, when you raise your finger on someone (some people) you need to make sure your finger itself is not crooked.
P.S.: I too hate kewl's, gawd's, puhleez's. ;P