Internet Shorthand :: Communication Language Computers Essays

Internet Shorthand Translate the following conversation, if you can: GUY1: wuz up? GUY2: nm, just chillin, u? GUY1: co’, btw did u hear about joe GUY2: no GUY1: imho, hes crazy :) he told julia that he wanted 2 8==D her @ the mall GUY2: roflmao! :) ur right, hes crazy GUY1: 4 real GUY2: hey, I g2g, ttyl GUY1: l8r Any guess on to what is going on? Well, I’ll go ahead and give you the basic rundown on what the conversation said: Guy1 was commenting on how is friend Joe asked a girl (Julia) if they could have consensual sex together in the local mall. Guy2 found this exchange very amusing, as he was â€Å"rolling on the floor laughing my ass off†. Furthermore, Guy1 also interjected his own personal opinion that Joe was/is crazy. Finally they agreed to converse at a later date. All that from 43 separate â€Å"symbols† and words. Welcome to the future. However, in my humble opinion, you can exchange the word ‘future’ with ‘hell’. The internet, chatting and the glut of instant messengers have helped create a subculture of the English langue that is starting to creep into everyday life. It’s a disturbing trend. I feel the line needs to be drawn between the fast flowing conversational style shorthand of internet writing and formal English style before the way we write as we know it makes a radical change towards simple pictures and codes. Maybe part of my opinion is based on spite: If I had to learn all the dos and don’ts of modern English, so should you. But I think it’s more then just that. I can see the writing on the wall and it’s not looking too bright. Dumbing down the language to simplest terms can be a very dangerous thing. Don’t believe me, flip through a copy of Orwell’s 1984 and you’ll see how Big Brother has developed a â€Å"plainspeak† directive. In fact, I’m not alone in this belief. In Sven Birket’s article â€Å"Into the Electronic Millennium† he discusses the devolution of modern language: â€Å"The complexity and distinctiveness of spoken and written expression, which are deeply bound to traditions of print literacy, will gradually be replaced by a more telegraphic sort of ‘plainspeak’† (70).