Nu-spk
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009Language is evolving - some would say devolving - at an incredible rate. Vowels are becoming an endangered species and children can send intricate ideas and plans with the flicker of a thumb over a touchpad, all in 160 characters or less. My degree is in English Literature, so surely I should hate these changes… only I don’t.
In fact, I have reluctantly come to love text speak - when used appropriately it can be incredibly effective. In today’s 100mph world of email and text communication, it’s sometimes completely necessary to get a point across quickly and accurately. An email to a business client? Should be written out, painstakingly, with all the usual conventions. You can even end it with ‘kind regards’ if you must.
<Tangent> What the hell does ‘kind regards’ actually mean anyway? It’s stupid and very annoying. </Tangent>
Actually, I have to admit that in a previous life I hated this Newspeak as much as anyone. “It’s eroding our language” I cried, “making us all sound like chavs and idiots”. If someone texted me in this nightmarish, Orwellian dialect their message would go unanswered. My social calendar suffered, but I cared not. These new ways were killing society… the mating call of the Luddite.
Because language evolves and adapts. It has to. Otherwise we’d never get anything done, all our time would be taken up with forming intricate sentences filled with words like ‘verily’ and ‘thou’. The internet has opened the door to real-time, written communication. So what is the point in writing ‘back in a second, just nipping to the bathroom’ when ‘BRB - bio’ will suffice? Why bother with ‘that was an extremely funny anecdote’ when a simple ‘LOL’ (and it doesn’t mean ‘lots of love’… anymore) communicates the exact same sentiment?
txt spk hz itz plAc. dun try & fite it, dun try & stop d chAng. cuz 1 dA it wiL consume U, & youll b L 
& aloN, lIk d pensioners of 2day w thR 5 TV channels, hu furrow thR brows & sA ‘i dun bother w DIS internet rubbish’, whilst society roars off in2 d sunset…