Glass Half Full: LOL… not
Within the past decade, a new language derivative of modern technology has infiltrated the masses. Text messages and IMs are like a chainsmoking habit; we just can’t get enough. While reminiscent of the shorthand of secretaries the world over, this novel jargon has become addictive to preteens and business execs alike. However, I can’t help at times to feel like I’m MIA in conversations. Are we too BZ for a few extra letters in our written correspondence, or are we just trying to take the EZ way out in our hectic lives? IDK.
With the quiet buzzing of a cell phone, this phenomenon has crept upon us almost unconsciously. Not only have we resorted to OMG’s and WTF’s in written communication, we’re now using them in our everyday vernacular. Frankly, it’s not QT, nor is it NBD. The educated person in society has become strikingly illiterate. Y do we feel the need to LOL online instead of in person or even during a phone call? I worry that the more detached we become from language and culture, our relationships BTW our BFs and GFs — even our “BFF Jill” — will become strained and impersonal. The WWW has taken the special and eloquent task of letter writing and turned it into a vulgar, impersonal POS.
FYI, I do think that some word dissection is necessary and helpful: for instance, JMU, AA and NATO . But often I receive texts from people and they are utterly FUBAR. Every day it seems there is a new term to think ABT, Google and then look up in a slang dictionary. I wonder how many marriages have ended because of an indecipherable IM or how many people have been fired because their boss thought BB meant “big bastard” or something. And don’t even get me started on the use of capital letters; that’s totally gone out the window and probably won’t BRB for a long time to come.
We can identify with the Cingular commercial’s mother of “BFF Jill” who tells her daughter “I’ve failed you as a parent.” They can’t even understand one another; they’re speaking different generational languages. I want to know, as does Boost Mobile, “Where U At?” in this whirlwind of exclusionary terminology. There is no hope for my parents or grandparents whose thumbs are not as agile as they once were. But there is hope for you yet, texters anonymous.
Perhaps I am too critical of those who have arthritis in their thumbs and strained eyes from hundreds of hours on GChat. Maybe words like BO and PU are niceties that should be used so as not to offend anyone too much. Heck, if Jack Kerouac refused to use capital letters and proper grammatical structures, who knows what superfluous abbreviations will do for the bright future of American literature.
Whatev. Some might say we might as well save the coherent writing for L8R. W/all these kewl new words, Y not hop on the bandwagon of brainless conversations permeated by incoherent abbreviations and hundred-dollar phone bills?
I’m not ROFL here, and I’m definitely not J/K. We are POWs in the battle to preserve our language! AOL is no longer simply America Online; indeed, we are Americans On Leashes. Our personalities are AWOL in the midst of Ks and N/Ms. Crackhead-like texters, oblivious to oncoming traffic or the true spelling of “fo sho” are gobbling up these metaphorical bytes like dolphins at feeding time.
I hope this article did not make you ZZZ, but hopefully helped you think about what message we’re really sending. THX for reading, and I guess I’ll TTYL. LYL!
Traci Cox is a junior English major.
