Lazy or efficient?
From Mod Mania
lazy or efficient?
fellow wiki-ites,
the concern i make known today was inspired by a situation which arose earlier this week when i received an sms (Short Message Service) in which a friend expressed their amusement through the abbreviation LOL, which, for those (who will be few) do not understand, translates to Laugh Out Loud. i am not sure y but this combination of letters, just lke OMG (Oh My God) or GR8 (great) tend to irritate like nails across a blackboard.
clearly this is a language that has developed, or more thrived, by the recent revolution in portable telecommunication, nurtured to the point of online and hard copy reference material with which to research meanings and definitions. language is another element affected by the prevalent technological invasion, and possibly affecting future and existing human interaction capability, deeming it another “mod”... in my eyes anyway. obviously i am not one to dismiss the need to save a few bucks and a couple of minutes by short handing language in sms (Short Message Service) msgs, as there are only 160 characters available 4 use,(and traditional vocal conversation has somewhat been left on the sidelines these days so we need 2 say as much as we can in those designated parameters). however, it seems to be a language blossoming so effectively, that it has become a blurred line between lazy and efficient communication.
i wanted to know if this kind of change injects a negative impact on the younger generation interacting regularly with the txt lingo so i decided to inspect this a little further, lo and behold i found a very useful site called textually.org which discusses and contributes everything txt... basically. a commentary posted march 11, 2004 discusses an article in The Telegraph, UK posted 11/03/2004 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/11/nslang11.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/03/11/ixhome.html) where “the proliferation of street slang and text messaging has become so problematic that many youngsters are now virtually unemployable". It goes on to discuss how young people struggle to express themselves in a situations requiring well spoken speech, such as job interviews or even in the workplace, Gulfram Khan, Chairman of the Conservative Party, Birmingham, UK states, “the language barrier was costing youths jobs”.
however, another article in the Scotsman (http://business.scotsman.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=2524791) posted 11/05/2004 talks about txt language as a “trend”, where “experts in text and chat room speech have identified a trend to create different styles of English within the usual contractions and abbreviations, which is similar to the way that different languages gradually come into existence.”, suggesting that the txt language is 1 experiencing a natural linguistic process. Professor David Crystal of the University of Wales, (author of A Glossary of Netspeak and Textspeak) goes on to say “texting will develop its own standard. it will become a variety of the English language or the French language." the article also touches on the subject of creating these different dialects as a tool for fitting in to a community, supporting a sense of belonging. so, language is very dynamic, this is clear, it has morphed, twisted and contorted according to a society’s growth, accommodating all of our freakish needs. The evolution of language ,(or modding of) has spanned through a colourful history where “ languages continually infiltrate each other, as words are spread by conquest, empire, trade, religion, technology or - in modern times - global entertainment.” (http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab13).
language changed when the telephone or telegraph was introduced, and now it changes with the mobile phone. Grammar, vocabulary, dialect are discussed like genes in an article on the history of language (cited above), where “fitness” of a word or phrase may survive based on it’s popularity, simplicity or due to trendy inventions. even English is a mod on language, where its “vocabulary is approximately half Germanic and half Romance in origin”. language development goes only as far as societal, cultural and human development, so i suppose the txting revolution is inevitable...and strangely enough, natural. besides, ‘mod’ is a mod in itself! c u l8r ;-)
