BTW,” I told DH, “I asked SIL if she was TTC. She’s all, ‘OMG! I don’t ever want to get PG again! LOL!’ So I said, ‘WTH? I thought you wanted another one! Is BIL gettin’ a V? Snip-snip!’ ROTFL!”
“What? Who’s Bill?”
“Stop being such a PITA! YKWIM! (*rolls eyes*)”
“Are we giving ourselves stage directions now?”
“OMG!!!1111ELEVENTYONE!!111!!! U R TEH DUMB!11!!!”
Get out of my head, LiveJournal. Away with you, iVillage. A pox on ye, Jonsons’ Olde Message Boarde & Apothecarist. This English major has already succumbed to such neologistic abominations as “all about” and “hookup.” I’ve already given in to my husband’s creeping MBAisms. (After a cost-benefit analysis, I repurposed them into value added take-aways).
But netspeak, I beg of you: take leave of my window! I will not let you in, you hovering linguistic vampire!
Every so often some technological innovation gets the excessively modest undergarments of the language police into a symmetrical little bunch. Unwashed masses with word processors degraded the written word. Telephones doomed us to writing full of “dialogue.” Moveable type? Forged by Satan himself! Hogwash!
But the Internet? As clear a harbinger of linguistic demise as a Toys ‘R’ Us All Nite Drive-Thru. It’s ungood. Doubleplusungood.
Netspeak — like the common cold or Lindsay Lohan — appeared harmless at first, but is proving surprisingly difficult to eradicate. I blame the capitalization of the Internet — monolithic, singular — as if a country unto itself. Every country has its own language, but must theirs replace ours?
Thanks to Microsoft Word, handwriting was already headed south. (Written a check lately? Help me out — in cursive, which is “T” and which is “F?”) Then spell-check reared its ugly head, rubberstamping gems like: “They’re friends said there their.”
Dismantling language itself was the next logical step. Some worry we’re heading down a slippery slope, ending in monosyllables and hand gestures. I am one of those people, and I’ll tell you why: I am a snob.
I can spell, and my grammar, despite excessive commas, is good. I can tell less from fewer. I write LOL only when I am literally laughing out loud. I know this is a pitiful thing about which to boast. (See what I did there? Take that, preposition!)
I know no one else cares, and that people with dyslexia or fast fingers shouldn’t be penalized by pedants. I realize that standardized spelling is a recent invention. I don’t care. I use salutations in emails. I spell out a-r-e and y-o-u. I want my gold star!
I learned the rules, and fairness dictates that everyone else must follow them. Time should stand still, or preferably, move backwards. Let’s see more “heretofores” and “inasmuchases.” If I hear one more JMHO IRL, I shall shriek incoherently in a manner that can only be described as “*runs screaming.*”
Michelle Bowen-Ziecheck is a Weinberg junior. She can be reached at [email protected]
