Cover Story
Mind your language!

By Jasir Jawaid

Every day, I'm lucky enough to get to browse through some of the social networking sites that I have a profile on and approve/delete all of the great things people write to me. It is a fantastic source of discussion where many of you act wise beyond your years in dispensing advice to those in need. So, all in all, I enjoy reading. Well, except when I read something like this:

I just don't understand what Rebecca's thinking here. No no, I can see why she wants to kill Kathy; it's completely understandable to feel angry at someone who is trying to steal your lover away from you. The thing that confounds me about Rebecca is the way she writes about it.

If you look at any social networking site today, you'll notice thousands of posts similar to Rebecca's; many of them are probably our fellow citizens. In fact, there is no Rebecca. The post above was fabricated by me, but I'm sure that if I had announced that it was lifted from the boards, you wouldn't have doubted it for a second. In a hectic age where everyone seems to be in a rush, it is no wonder that the spoken word has suffered from a terse condensation. Admittedly, these internet abbreviations come up in my speech patterns too and now I know that typing a word in a "fancy Internet way" makes it difficult to read. Every time I write an article I have to delete some of the words and then re-write them. But, gradually, I am getting over it now. The Internet's degradation of the English language has become at once bad and familiar.

The Internet conversation today has become a skeleton of what it once was, not vague enough to be misunderstood, but cut down to only the bare minimum. But why should we be resting on the bare minimum? Unfortunately these abbreviations (or abbreves, as they are often appropriately dubbed) have been infiltrating our speech patterns more and more of late, making us sound less and less intelligent. It's definitely somewhat amusing, but the joking part has somehow become less funny. While I used to only use three letter words like "OMG" for mockery purposes, I've found it popping up in places subconsciously. And when that happens, I immediately feel like the credibly of the words coming out of my mouth has decreased significantly. Yes, I most "def" sound stupid. But then again, I type out longer words than most of my friends... I like having a broad vocabulary (see, I almost typed vocab) and I like being the only one who does it. It's so annoying having to figure out what the heck people are saying when they "t4lk l1k3 d1zz", take the extra few seconds and type out the whole damn word. You'll even learn how to type faster if you're in such a hurry!

I find net speak to be one of the most annoying things in the world. Half the time I have no idea what a person is trying to say and some of those abbreviations leave me baffled. Certain abbreviations are acceptable because they sort of allow a person to avoid swearing, but for the most part it is insanity inducing. It's not just net speak either; the lack of capitalization makes me want to punch someone. I mean really, would it kill a person to hit that little shift button every once in a while? Nothing is as bad as "C u l8r." That's just horrendous!

People can speak in whatever way they want. Who cares about the quality of our language? Besides, it's just words, which don't mean much. What's the big deal if it doesn't even matter? Maybe it doesn't matter in a pop culture sense, but in a survival-of-the-culture sense, literacy certainly does matter. It's like those barbarians who overran the latter-day Roman Empire. They weren't any less cultured than many of the Roman citizens they overran. You see, if we as a culture allow this nonsensical phrasing to continue, it's going to spill over into places where it doesn't belong. But before we start thinking about how to tackle this problem, I'm going to show you why it's a problem. Let's analyze this entire trend of abuse towards language, shall we?  I don't understand why it has caught on and appeals to so many of us, but these are the scruples I have with the whole thing:

It's difficult to read. At the fossil-esque age of 21, maybe I'm just too old to understand what hip teens are doing these days, creating their own Internet terminology. When did the English language go out of style in favour of the complete annihilation of coherency? I challenge anyone to be able to read a passage like the aforementioned above without pausing to try to figure out what is being said at one point. Perhaps when typing something out like this, you're attempting to stand out from the crowd to make you look more interesting than you are? Well, here's the kicker about that--if you're trying to stand out from the crowd, you're only lumping yourself into a crowd of people that appear to not be able to grasp the concept of correct pronunciation. It does not look special. Ok, admittedly, I have seen some cool things done that have looked nice, (~~*things like this*~~ ) but that only is acceptable in sprucing up your name to look pretty. Other than that, it is UsELeSs.

Complete lack of aesthetics. As mentioned above, there are rare instances when this works. However, 99 percent of the time, it renders whatever you are reading into an abomination of sloppy characters. It gives a connotation of immaturity, or even stupidity, as many probably assume that you cannot craft a sentence on your own. It makes you look stupid. Not to mention...

It's not practical. The amount of time it took me to write Rebecca's paragraph is probably the same length of time needed to write the rest of this article. For a final payoff that is both obnoxious and difficult to read, why do so many continue to waste precious time purposefully misspelling words and adding random capital letters where they don't belong? Do some of you honestly not know how to spell some words so you just make up how they sound?

 You're hurting your future. A teacher of mine said that most of the people, especially Pakistanis, fail in the ACCA exams because they attempt the manual paper of ACCA using a lot of Internet abbreviations, resulting in their failure. Why do that to yourself? Salvage whatever's left of your education while you can. Typing in such a fashion, you grow accustomed to the constant use of poor English. What happens when it's time to buckle down and write that huge research paper you left til the last minute? You're going to have a much harder time than usual completing it because you will not be used to using proper grammar. P.S. It's "till" not "til"!

The fact is that any form of self-expression (written or spoken) says A LOT about you. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck; people will say, "Hey, that's a duck!" Therefore, if you write like an idiot and talk like an idiot, people are going to say, "Hey, there's an idiot!" It "duzn't l00k c00l to l00k dum". And on or off the net, your words WILL follow you wherever you go. Whether you think it matters or not, it DOES matter. And thinking it doesn't matter only makes you more of an idiot. In my opinion it is lazy to write in this manner all the time. It has its place - like shorthand did to secretaries back in the day- but it is not in the classroom, doctor's office or any other place of business. Please use discernment when using these shortened words.... they kind of give some of us a headache trying to pronounce them.

I think we all agree when I say we have a sufficiency of deficiency in our country. So, obviously this isn't the gravest problem we're facing today, with the entire judges thing, load shedding, flour crises, and our country being bombarded from the other side of the border and everything in between. But this definitely is one of the gravest problems; I don't even think we can yet see how much Internet typing patterns will affect the levels of intelligence of our youth. When I called my brother out on his propensity for cutting two syllable words down to one far too often for me to even catch what he had actually said, he jokingly replied, "whateva. obvi, ur just jeal cuz i speak in abbreves." And yes, this was all online. Anyone who incorporates Internet acronyms into their real life speech deserves a kick in the head. Also, some ridiculous ones like "hbu?" (how are you) need to go away. Just learn to type the stuff out.

Overall, there is no point. I encourage any of you to give me a completely valid and logical reason as to why people type like this. For example, I type normally with "normal english" because it is efficient, and easy to read.

You may be wondering, "But, what can I do to cure myself of this problem I have?" It's easy. Start off small, by correctly capitalizing where necessary in sentences rather than typing LiKe ThIs. And then you start using correct punctuation; you may even learn to use the semi-colon.

So the next time you find yourself exclaiming, "WTH," or "BTW", think about how ridiculous you sound. It might seem all fun now, but when you can't remember how to talk in complete sentences; you'll definitely regret it. Please realize that this language is totally inappropriate in the professional world and if you want people to value what you say at all, don't cut your words. Cutting down the language will kill all the great literature.