Our Rapidly Diminishing Vocabulary
It’s hard to believe, but internet madness has REALLY been in our consciousness for only a decade. Our youngsters are growing up with tech tools as a given. We codgers are adapting at record pace to keep up. Some younger readers following this blog will find it hard to believe these observations are even necessary.
As each new technology shows up, we find ourselves leaving one behind and adapting to the new one. Are you on Facebook? Myspace? Twitter? Are you Blogging? Do you even have a standard website? Or is that, “like, so yesterday?”
With Twitter- which is texting online – you have to learn to think in 140 characters. You have followers, you follow others, you learn shorthand, and you learn what others care about and what they don’t. It’s a “Barbie Doll application” – meaning, it has spawned a number of support apps to make sense of it. I have downloaded Tweetdeck to manage all the Tweets! (I’m even following my FAVORITE comedian, Steven Wright!) If you want to “follow” me, go here.
As Twitter heats up, I’ll bet some of the other technologies will fall by the wayside. I wonder which will win. Which will survive the long haul as each new thing pops up. In 2050 will people still own MySpace Real Estate? For that matter, will we be Twittering 2 years from now? Or will something new take it’s place?
One techno-fallout I know for certain: spelling and vocabulary are rapidly dying. What Esperanto failed to accomplish, Twitter and Texting accomplished in one short year. Words are spelled out as they sound, or letters and numbers substitute for the sound of the words. Initials replace entire sentences. POS – means “parent over shoulder” — so the recipient of the text knows why the texter isn’t responding to something the parent wouldn’t approve of.
There are complex ones: FOTFLMAO (which means Falling On the Floor Laughing My A** Off.) And simple ones that just make sense. How RU – easy to read, How Are You? (Go here for more info on words and abbreviations.)
Emoticons have taken the place of conversation. They still throw people who aren’t spending a lot of time online. Along with LOL – Laughing Out Loud, we have little emotion symbols: ;-D – if you hold it sideways, you can see that is someone winking, the dash is their nose, and the D is a broad smile. See it? Ok, cool. (My secretary is laughing. She’s 25. “Who doesn’t know this?” You’d be surprised!)
THEN, Emoticons were pushed aside by Smileys – which are animated Emoticons doing everything from Rocking a baby (for Mothers’ Day) to, well, things I don’t want to put on a blog. Let’s just say mischievous types have made X-rated ones. Of course.
What is the net result of all this techno-babble? We aren’t having regular conversations anymore. People look at us funny if we type or talk in full sentences with multi-syllabic words. We find ourselves editing for brevity… and feel guilty when we use – GASP - 500 words to communicate this message!
So – Tnx 4 Rdng this. Hope U hv a gr8 day.
Cheers,
Beth
© 2009 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc.
