June 13, 2011

"Murder!!", she cried.

Victim: The English language.

Suspect(s): All of us.

I have no respect whatsoever for people who murder and mutilate the English language. Call me a prude, call me a bitch, whatever, but I stand by what I say. I will not even read a message if it is written entirely in SMS language.

The worst part is, there are several kinds of these English-language murderers:-

1) The ones who think it’s ok to omit the vowels (other than the articles ‘a’ and ‘an’, or if it is the first letter of a word). After all there are just five of them, right?
Eg:- Wht a wndrfl dy.
Fck ff.

2) The ones who add the extra letters at the end or in between, hoping to sound enthusiastic or prove a point.
How are youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu???? Loooooooooooooooooooooonggggggggggggggggggg timmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeee!!!!
Yes, but not as long as it will take me to get over that greeting.

3) The ones who substitute ‘s’ with ‘z’.
Hi friendzzzzzzzzzz. How izzzz life?!
Great. How is your zexy wife?

4) The ones who use letters as whole words.
Y r u sad? Is it d t?
Kill me.

5) The ones who purposely mutilate the spelling even when it doesn’t make much of a difference to the original word length, except for one or two letters.
It ws a reeli awesum nite. I luv u.
Wat???

6) The ones who change spellings in the misconception that they sound cool.
Mah frendz say I’m kewl and a dahling.
Eww.

7) The ones who leave out the ‘g’ in an ‘-ing’ word.
I’m goin swimmin.
What did the ‘g’ do to you that you’re leaving it out, you big bully?

8) The ones who don’t capitalize the first letter of the first word of a sentence.
how are you? hope you’re fine.
Come on, guys, that’s basic. All it takes it a simple press of the shift button.

9) The ones who don’t capitalize ‘I’.
i luv u. i reeli do.
If you can’t give yourself respect while writing, then how can you expect someone else to give it to you?

10) The LOL- and ROFL-ers. No more comments.

11) The ones who combine the ‘cks’ to ‘x’.
My life roxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx!
Tell me, will you like it if someone asks you how your ‘secks’ life is?

12) The ones who are careless enough to mix up similar sounding words. Ok, this is not a murder, but a casualty nonetheless.
Their was ones a girl whose parents where very poor.

13) The ones who think that language and maths can be seamlessly blended.
My luv 4 u is gr8. I cnt wait 2 meet u. Will cal u l8r.
Thhu!!

14) The ones who think it’s ok to not use commas and full stops.
Hi how are you I am fine what are you doing what is wrong with you get lost you loser bye goodnight.
It’s like loose motion. Believe me.

15) The ones who ‘forget’ the apostrophes.
I dont know. He wont tell me. cant you tell me?

I know what half of you are thinking. “Bitch, thinks she’s some kind of a scholar, huh, just because she studied English Literature[spellcheck done, Red Handed;)]?” No, I have no such illusions. I’m just saddened by the way the language has deteriorated. I used to be like that. I cringe when I read my old posts. The Facebook, Twitter and SMS generation has murdered the language. And sadly, I’m also a part of that generation... And the most brutal murderers are the ones who say “What’s your problem? We’ll write whichever way we want.” I just feel sorry for their children, who’ll be taught A 4 Apl at skool.

If there’s anyone out there who shares my angst, do pitch in.

33 comments:

  1. Guilty as charged :D
    But will keep on doing so.
    Nd btw (by the way),spell check required here.

    Last paragraph second line.. LITEREATURE?

    Great post though. Loved reading and admitting! :D

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  2. @Red Handed: Arrggh!! I had to make some mistake at the end of all this and give someone a chance to point at me. :/

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  3. I'm with you...there are several changes to the language that I hate. Call me old-fashioned! However, I still use LOL or ROFL (as those are the only ways you can write how you are reacting to something) and I am guilty of using 'u' or 'd' in my text messages...but that's due to lack of space! :P In my blog posts however, you won't find the use of 'u' or 'd' or 'wif' or any such short forms. In those, I'm probably only guilty of the soooooo :P

    Great post!

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  4. @Psych Babbler: Hey, thanks for dropping by. :)

    We all are guilty of slipping up sometime or the other when it comes to such things. The lack of space in text messages leads us to type in short form, but then that becomes a habit, you know. We tend to write like that everywhere. I remember, a couple of years back, I used to write like that even in application forms. :/

    But sms-es are cheap now. There are unlimited packages provided by almost every network. Even then,people continue to type like that. Why? Out of habit. I used to do that, but now I'm trying as much as possible to write properly. As a result, when Airtel put a '100 messages per day' limit, I was heartbroken reading my own messages. Horrible! But it's back to unlimited messaging now, so I'm a happy soul. :)

    And honestly, I find it exhausting to read messages that are completely in sms language. It takes double the effort to figure out what they're trying to convey. :/

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  5. And you're right about the LOL and ROFL's. There isn't any way other than emoticons to express it. But still, it pinches me somewhere to read it... Like you said, old-fashioned, I guess. :/

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  6. *Respect* .... thank you for the post. Living every bit of that agony expressed in the post. And am sharing this on FB - hope u don't mind!

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  7. @Meena: By all means, please do share. Whatever bit we can do, let's.

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  8. Ah, another grammar nazi post. We'll always have something more to add to the subject won't we? But god, the lolz and frenz types and the vowel omit(ters) got to be the worst offenders! Eww.

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  9. @Judy: Of course we will have more to add. I didn't put too much time into this post, otherwise I'm sure I would've got more. :/ The world is full of them...

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  10. Without posting a huge rant all I can say is 'Fank Yew' for bringing out what was niggling at the back of my mind :D I use a lot of LOL and ROFL though but the ones who change the spellings have to be the worst kind! I mean seriously? "Whaay doo uu saaund laike thaat?" :\

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  11. I cringe and convulse when I see that three letter word: mah or worse, ma! What in the world is it supposed to mean? :D I mean, SMS lingo is all about shortening it, so why go for 'mah' when one can easily 'my'?

    I am a chain lol-er and rolf-er. But not guilty. :P

    Loved no. 11. rofl @ 'secks'! :D
    Oops...;)

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  12. @Dawn Zhang: Egjaktly! :P

    @Destiny's Child: I guess LOL's and ROFL's can be pardoned. But not the rest! When I hear a 'mah', I'm reminded of Moov's ad- Aah se aaha tak. :/ Uff!!

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  13. Oh God!! The very same thing was on my mind the other day! When a friend came online the other day and went like..."hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!! hwzz uuu?! wtz u dng?!" I almost had a seizure! DON'T they realize how dumb and spastic they sound when they do that!?!? :O Will it choke them to type full spellings with good grammar and punctuation?! Yeesh!! [-\

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  14. Phurst tym commentin'...Oops, did I blow your vein :P? Am a new reader in your block. Though a victim, I'm with you in the crusade against the Grammar massacre. Do skip to point 5 in http://goo.gl/8LxrX

    And no, that's not my blog.

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  15. @Anvita: I'm with you on the seizure part. Sheesh!!

    @Vijitha: Done! :)

    @Adidash: Thanks!
    And that blog was hilarious!! Even I've always wondered what the need of 'zzz' at the end of LOL is. Thanks for that link! :)

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  16. Hilarious! Absolutely hilarious! You actually had me laughing like a nut with my ma giving me some really weird glances :P

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  17. i could see myself laughing at some point.nice piece.

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  18. I AM TOTALLY WITH YOU ON THIS!
    Ok, I wrote that in all caps because I had written a post along these lines way back, and you've mirrored the same concerns here! :D

    My article on the English language going to the dogs can be found here:

    http://vini4u.blogspot.com/2010/01/whats-in-word.html

    Yeay! Glad to find a person with similar thoughts on the subject :)

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  19. @Vinitha: All caps pardoned for a kindred soul. ;)

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  20. Ho Ho Ho!
    Ho Ho Ho!
    Ho Ho Ho!
    :D
    I can't remember the last time I read a blog-post which was funnier than this.
    Superb work!
    Keep it up!
    Following you Spaceman Spiff!

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  21. @The Xeno: Thanks! :) You know, it was the name of your blog that made me visit it. I heart sarcasm. ;)
    Thanks for dropping by, Xeno. :)

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  22. Guilty as charged. Absolutely loved this one.

    "I used to be like that. I cringe when I read my old posts."

    I cringe at my old "Orkut Scraps" and text messages myself. I think we all just grow out of it.

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  23. @Vineeth: Thanks. :)
    Yup, I suppose at some point, we grow out of it. It's the ones who still haven't that I have a problem with. :p I don't even do much of Facebook-ing these days for this same reason- it's like a massacre out there.

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  24. Howsoever demeaning the convulsions in language, its interesting to see morons do that!!

    P.S. :Gives us subject to crib upon :)(said so as a fellow blog-dog!!)

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  25. @Pranav Sharma: You're right, it is interesting to see how experimental they get with the language. But after a point, all the zzzzzzzzzzzzzz start to rattle your nerves. *shudder*
    Thanks for dropping by. :)

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  26. Divya, I can't tell you how amusing this post was :D I share your angst here and I don't plead guilty as charged. I was thinking of writing a post sharing my cussy views, but soon after reading your post, I dropped my plan, this was a masterpiece. All I wanted to write is listed here. Precise. Accurate. Perfect.

    And the one that seriously fumes me is the use of 'mah' instead of 'my', I mean come on, why do you transform a beautiful 2 alphabet word into a hideous 3 alphabet monster. Even if my one-page sms elongates to a 3-page sms, I forbid myself to use such language. It's gross.

    "Meeh lurved dis post" :D:D:D:D

    We're sisters from different mothers :P, I'm a huge huge huge grammar nazi, thanks to my iPhone, it prompts spellings and auto-capitalizes 'I'. I just realized how much it helped. :P

    You're awesome.

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  27. August 27

    This was my status on Facebook :D


    p33paL Hu TyP LiK3 ThIs

    Kindly get a life, you are sick :X (Jeez, it took me 5 long minutes to imitate and write those 5 words).

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  28. @Serendipity: I sometimes type 4-5 pages long sms'es. Even on roaming. But I will never use sms language, except for 'ystday' and 'gnite'. It's such a strain to read msgs written like that no!
    And my status update sometime last year was "I hte ppl hu typ lyk ths". :P

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  29. Hello there! It's nice to hear you enjoyed my blog. Thanks a lot. I absolutely agree with your post! It's brilliant and than God for Grammar Nazis like you and me. The world is a much better place. Oh and about following my blog, jeez, I'm a bit of an IT retard so give me some time to figure it out yeah?

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  30. @Darsh: Hey, thanks for dropping by! :) And yes, hail Grammar Nazis! ;)

    ReplyDelete

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