Yes, there are many things about text language and web 2.0 parlance that confuse and irritate me. I don't know why it is any easier to write woz instead of was. It is the same amount of key strokes on an old alpha-numeric phone or keyboard, it looks clumsy and, to be fair, it makes you look like an utter retard.
I don't get why people, in high-up positions of power in a corporate setting use KR instead of kind regards. Is it really 'kind regards' if the regards have been shortened to the extent that it is a throw away coupling of random letters. Are these the regards I would cherish and show off to people as 'kind'? Are you really 'that busy' that you can't bash out a few more letters on your Blackberry? I'd rather have nothing than a half-hearted excuse for something.
But here comes the shock. I don't mind text language. I don't mind emoticons. I don't mind chatroom abbreviations. I think, just as other words from multiple backgrounds and sources have infiltrated our language and become common place, so will these new cyber phrases. Wouldn't our language be a boring, horrid place if it just stayed still? Stagnating like a disused pond. Getting more and more concentrated as the joy and life evaporated out of it?
OK, maybe I'm going over the top but since the dawn of language there have been the protectors of 'English' who have fought against anything that seemed to 'tarnish it' or modernise it with outside influence. But then, don't those people sound similar to the scared, pathetic simpletons marching through Leicester city centre right now supporting the English Defence League? England always has been and always will be a mish mash of multiple races, backgrounds, faiths and experiences. None of us are 'pure bred' English because it doesn't exist. So why should our language be any different. Why does it matter if people use LOL in spoken language (even though it makes no sense when spoken)? Who cares if someone wants to emphasise cheekiness or genuine displeasure in a previously unclear text with the use of brackets and colons? It doesn't. It's how people communicate and the bastions of English can fight all they want but if that's what the population uses to communicate then by golly that is the language the country adopts.
Don't get me wrong. There is a time and a place. Scrawling :-( on a funeral condolence card is not really appropriate. Using youthful cyber abbreviations in your CV won't get you too far. But, just like any slang, you just need to use your judgement as to when it's right to use it. Shouting FUCK YOU GARY YOU LITTLE SHIT at your child in a supermarket is a common practice, utterly reprehensible and highlights the 'wrong' use of language. But would you take the words 'Fuck' and 'Shit' out of the English language? We wouldn't have heard the poetic swearing brilliance of Malcolm Tucker and Shaun Ryder would be left a mute.
But I think everyone needs to chill the fuck out when it comes to 'English'. So many people across the globe use our fair tongue but if we stop it from evolving, modernising and staying relevant then, just like the culture of our country, we'll be left behind.
KR
R
xxxx
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