All over the Commonwealth, calls are being raised for the abolition of the English monarchy, and it is also evident that all over the world the English language is being mangled. The title of this piece is therefore apt – God needs to save the Queen as well as English.
It pains me to see such a beautiful language as English being ruined by a cheap phenomenon we know as the SMS lingo. I think it is basically a getaway for people who are bad at English. Because in the SMS lingo, nothing is actually incorrect. You can use any crooked abbreviation, ruin the spelling in any possible way and absolutely forget that there is something called grammatical correctness. And what is worse is that everyone seems to have this ability of being able to decipher these messages. You are then expected to use your own skills at sabotaging grammar and reply in a similar way.
“ Hie hwz are u? Wht r u doin?”
“Planning to throw a dictionary in your face. “
I have tried asking many people the reason behind adopting this lingo, and I am yet to receive any convincing answer. ’It saves space’ is plain illogical. For example, ‘Hie’ is a three-lettered word, the normal, sane ‘Hi’ being two-lettered. And what if it does reduce the number of characters most times? When you spell Chocolate as ‘chocl8’, you are not only destroying the word’s aesthetic appeal, but you are also making people wonder if you have failed fourth grade.
I fear that people’s obsession with the SMS language will make them forget how the words are actually spelt! Many of my friends have complained that they often catch themselves using words like ‘nd’ , ‘fr’ and ‘wht’ in their examination answer sheets. Why they say this with a hint of pride is beyond my understanding. It is a thing to worry about, right?
I feel that the usage of these ‘grammatically-modified’ words makes the conversations very irritating .I lose half my interest in the conversation the moment I see the other person making up words of his own. And I think that my feeling so is totally justified. After all, who wants to be left clueless about where the conversation is going? A friend texted ‘Gud luk’ and I was left wondering if he was appreciating my looks (albeit , in a grammatically incorrect way) in my new display picture or wishing me luck for some upcoming test (frankly speaking , I was pretty sure that it was for the exams) . It later turned out that it was the DP he was talking about! Unnecessary abbreviations and not using punctuations are the reason text messages cause so many misunderstandings and lead to so many gaffes.
I detest the SMS lingo as much as I detest Tusshar Kapoor movies . Why many people around me love it so much is something that I fail to understand. (same with the Tusshar movies actually) So fellow grammar Nazis, LET US SAVE ENGLISH!
