WORDS IN TROUBLE!

Internet was invented to make virtual communication possible, but now that objective is gradually strangling languages and making life hell for some people like me who stay in a cocoon and are still unknown to internet abbreviations. This is the reason why I had to spend about half an hour researching on the internet before writing this post…I’m not that genius you know!

I have not joined facebook yet and one of the main reasons behind it is the maddening short forms people are using nowadays. About one year back, I joined a social networking site just to try my hands on it. Just as I expected, the experience was pathetic! It had chat room system, I started chatting to a girl and this is how our conversation followed…

Cracxqueen76- sup?  (What’s up?)

Quite confused I answered after a minute or two.

Me- sup? What’s “sup”?

Cracxqueen76- fine…wbu? sup?  (Fine… what about you? What’s up?)

Me- sorry, I totally can’t understand what you are trying to say!

Cracxqueen76- oh! thos r jst ABBR’s… (Those are just abbreviations)

Me- I think I must get offline. My head is paining already. Anyways, nice to meet you!

Cracxqueen76- wut? Y?  (What? Why?)

I quickly rushed for that red Cross up there at the right side of the screen…phew! After that I didn’t open that site for days. I mean, what else could you expect from a girl who knew nothing except LOL? But really, we need to ask ourselves if this is what we are going to pass on to our future generations. A research performed by Amanda Lenhart showed that almost two-third of the children in the states used internet abbreviations while doing homework…what more are we waiting for?

Now, lets look at the transformation of the largely used sentence “What are you doing?”

It was too long for chats so people devised… “What’s goin’ on?”

Then, “what’s up?”

When people still couldn’t stand the load of this weak and undernourished question, they zeroed to… “Sup?”

BREAKING NEWS- recently it has been reported that some young and dedicated scientists are trying to break this 3-lettered question into something simpler, so that chatting becomes easier and faster than before…three cheers to easy and revolutionized communication… hip, hip…Hooray!

If this shortcut culture continues then soon a lesson called “abbreviations” will be added to English grammar books along with the old and conventional lessons like verbs, nouns, adjectives etc…Oh my god! That thought is really dreadful!

Oh! I can’t stand it anymore! These short forms could prove to be blight on the purity of languages. I think I would like to grab a nice English literature classic with my hot cappuccino. That may just calm me down for now.