It truly is an age of literary outburst, with people, and gult-ures (no intentional pun) evolving with a pace most historians would be reluctant to admit. Language, essentially a by-product of current culture, would naturally be assumed to be subject to similar change, and this assumption is not wrong. Words, the likes of which humanity has never seen before are being accepted at a rate that would make even the stoutest Shakespearean theorist quail with uncertainity.
Words like bahookie (n. Scottish a person's buttocks.), blowback (n. chiefly US the unintended adverse results of a political action or situation.), mzee (n. (in East Africa) an older person; an elder.), obesogenic (adj. tending to cause obesity), plank (n. Brit. informal a stupid person.), retronym (n. a new term created from an existing word in order to distinguish the original referent of the existing word from a later one that is the product of progress or technological development (e.g. acoustic guitar for guitar).) or twonk (n. Brit. informal a stupid or foolish person.) being recently added to Oxford are but a harbinger as to what is to come.
As I see the red line highlighting the word ‘dayz’ and involuntarily flinch, the import of what I’m writing comes back to me with renewed vigour. Language, is but a product of people’s day-to-day communication. Consequently, as everyday processes grow more ruthlessly efficient, the priority on the newer generation is of being more functional rather than descriptive. As the reliance on MS Word’s spellcheck grows, English continues to change in new bewildering ways until finally, an article written in an attempt to emulate the old English is said to be ‘murdering the language’. Believe me, such a time has come.
The English that we grew up with, that which we read in Enid Blyton and our other beloved authors is no longer our English. However, this being that case of the elephant in the room we will mercifully conlude this boring rant, saying: Todayz English is a mixture of reronyms and cool wordz that perfectly capture everything hip and happening around us, and if you don’t speak this tongue, then you’re a dweeb, a geek, a wannabe with noob status that ain’t gettin’ nowheres. I m gn nw. c u l8r. gn.
- A tribute to what used to be a beautiful language.
There, there.
< to be expanded >
1 comments:
I agree wholeheartedly. Nothing could be truer.
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