(This post was published in THE HINDU, Open Page, on September 17th 2011. You can view it here.)
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Yes. Yes. Yes. We all know English is a very funny language. Because it’s the only language where your nose runs and your feet smell. But what has become of this language now? Especially in a country like India, where people are known to speak English well? Thanks to the SMS feature in our cell phones, people are redefining the ways in which a word can probably be spelt.
Cn u plz tke dis wid u n w8t fr sumtim der? Ey rply fst, I hve wrk.
This is how people, not just a few, but a majority send text messages (I’m not talking about Twitter, because we still have the 140 word limit). Sometimes when I get such texts from my friends, I find it difficult to resist the temptation to delete that message and not bother to leave a reply. Curbing my irritation I try not to get irritated and try to read what they could have possibly wanted to convey. And somehow I find myself getting these messages when the situation is tense.
Not all are to be blamed actually. Some people are better; they are a bit more generous with the usage of alphabets than the other stingy ones. It at least makes some sense. I heard from someone that the Letter E was the most widely used alphabet in the English language. Not anymore, is my guess.
First E, then to an extent A. What did these poor alphabets do? Huh? Seriously. My heart goes out to them. They were the post popular ones and today they hardly find a place in our texts and messages. What did they do? I want to know. As a True Citizen who abides by the Laws and Regulations of this country ,by making use of the T9 mode, and making sure that I do not miss the As and Es and other alphabets, I have the right to know why some of you are so biased against them. And for those of you who doubt me, I always make use of the T9 mode, and I will continue to use them, till my last.
When I was talking to a few people about this, I was told that earlier, people used to be charged for their texts based on the number of characters used and hence in an attempt to save as much money as possible, people started using all these short forms and found it convenient to drop vowels. That made some sense. If I belonged to that era, I would probably have done the same thing. Considering that the main purpose of this is just to communicate your thoughts. Agreed. But if you could do that without spoiling the core and essence of the language, it would be better.
These days, we have messages which can be sent free of cost, or we are charged per message. So it doesn’t make a difference if we type with a conscious effort to include all the vowels which were taken for granted. You might as well ask me, ‘If it doesn’t make a difference why can’t I stick to that I like?’ Do you realize that, If you’d been typing the way I’d pointed at the beginning, it has a direct influence on the way you right. You don’t believe me, right?
Ok. Here’s a small activity for you. Take a pen/pencil and paper and write something. Since we all have the so called ‘starting –trouble’. I’ll give you a suggestion for that as well. Write a review about a film which has touched you deeply. If I know my friends well, I’m sure a half of them reading this, would never try it in the first place, some would say that they never saw any movies which affected them, some would find it difficult to find a piece of paper and pen. Even after having found the paper, some might not be able to proceed after, One day I went to the theater and watched a film. Write about 10 lines, don’t worry about the grammar. I’ll deal with that in my next post. Just write. You find yourself using wat, der, ther, awesum, pls, oly, don’t you? This is what I was talking about. And it is not good for you.
If it so happens that the other person whom you text falls in the same category as you(stingy texts), God be with you. If the person at the receiving end is someone like me, someone who prefers not to butcher the English language, and spell the words properly, please have some consideration. You aren’t going to get a Noble prize for spelling words the way they are, right, but come on, you aren’t going to get a prize for omitting letters either.
September 1, 2011 at 6:35 am
@ Karthik
Thank you.
Yes, aptly put, Murderers of the English Language.ANd a novel in the same fashion? My God.
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September 5, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Languages change over time, but I don't think the drastically shortened SMS slangs will survive for long. Gone are the days when the phone had only 8 keys and SMS had only 160 characters.
The next generation of kids will grow up with big screen touch screen devices with full keyboards with a dictionary. Yes… they'll probably won't remember how to spell hippopotamus anymore, but they surely won't mistype it. 🙂
BTW, have you read the urban dictionary (search for it on google)? Sometimes, I just browse it to read words that my next generation may be speaking.
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September 6, 2011 at 5:23 am
@ Tanmay
Yes,Languages change over time. But Tell me, hasn't the T9 Dictionary mode been available for a long time now, and still there remain only a handful few who make use of it. In most of the phones, people use today, Dictionary mode is also available, but because it is inconvenient, many do not prefer to use it.
And Yes, I will Google it.
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September 22, 2011 at 7:40 am
Amazing stuff. But one suggestion. It would be great if you could remove the word “luvs” in your twitter bio. That usage indeed contradicts your post.
Good Luck !
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September 22, 2011 at 4:09 pm
@ Remil
Thank you, But as I said, Twitter is an exception 😛
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October 7, 2011 at 6:45 am
really amazing! am always like & using T9 mode in my mobile.
¦(¯`v´¯)
¦ `•.¸.•`
¦¸.•´
¦(¸¸.•¨¯`•❤ ❤
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October 7, 2011 at 3:19 pm
@ Henry
thank you 🙂
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October 12, 2011 at 4:49 pm
🙂 wat, d, pls, s …..
It did happen to me. Not while writing a review on film. But in an exam 3 years back. Could spot at-least one in every page, underlined in red, when I got back my answer sheet.
Since then “E” and “A” did make a glorious return to my life.
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October 12, 2011 at 5:39 pm
@LeoPaw
Oh really Good to know they returned to your life 🙂
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October 13, 2011 at 5:07 am
its a gud effort to make our english language healthy… i hope atleast 1 ppl wil change after reading this.. if it happens,its a great success for u… stingy language makes english to read like hell… good work ashwini…
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October 13, 2011 at 2:25 pm
@ Suresh Ajai
Thank you so much 🙂
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October 15, 2011 at 10:07 am
Good one
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October 15, 2011 at 2:28 pm
@ Bindu
Thank you 🙂
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December 5, 2011 at 10:32 am
Hi ashwini, first time i have landed here.. and i enjoyed reading ur posts. U write very well..
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December 5, 2011 at 6:34 pm
@ Bharathi
Thank you so much 🙂
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December 17, 2011 at 6:37 am
So, u r a celebrated writer Ashwini!
May you have more success in life.
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December 17, 2011 at 2:10 pm
@ Neeraj
Thank you. I don't think I'm a celebrated writer yet, Still thank you for your wishes 🙂
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February 17, 2012 at 8:23 am
I do not like this murder or rather butchering of language either . No shortcuts for me also .
Nice post !
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February 17, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Thank you 🙂
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February 28, 2012 at 5:55 pm
Very nice blog, Writing unfortunately is not like swimming or cycling, which stays with you once you learn it. It is something which one needs to keep practicing it becuase without the beauty of words life will be so unbearable and incomprehensible as wel.
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February 29, 2012 at 10:15 am
THank you 🙂
Well said Saket. It's something you have to be constantly in touch with, else one would lose out on the small details of the beautiful language 🙂
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June 16, 2012 at 7:19 pm
This comment has been removed by the author.
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June 16, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Well Said. I always use full text.
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