I remember as I was growing up, my English teachers would sneer at the girls who read Mills and Boon romances. That is formulaic rubbish, they would say!
The comic lovers were fair game as well. Do you actually read the comics, or do you look at the pictures? As a committed Hardy Boys reader I would smile triumphantly at both groups. I only realised in hindsight that even the Hardy Boys is a formula. I am willing to wager that my very own English teacher must now be praying that his grandchildren would read, even if only the comic strip in the daily newspaper. Reading encourages good communication skills, which sometimes means good writing skills. The writer, regretfully, is the embarrassing counter example. I also remember when we, as kids, started speaking slang to appear cool. Elders derided us, stating that slang is the code of gangsters! It was slandered as the vilification of the English language. Yet, me and my chommies, we chuned the chune, wherever we vied. Needless to say, we quickly fixed our language just as soon as the elders or teachers entered the room.
The recent prevalence of social media implies that people have to write far more frequently than ever. I was reminded of this when a large newspaper group called me for comment on the texting habits of youth. The report did not appear so I guess the journalist is busy working, as per their new newspaper policy, on which party she supports and whether to declare her interest or not. So I started thinking. Y do yng ppl wrt wout vwl suds. I call this irritant the “Missing Vowel Syndrome”. It seems that kids have unilaterally decided that the alphabet has five letters too many, so they simply truncated it.
We adults liked the idea and copied them. Or is this what really happened? A historic reason for this form of “economic” communication was the high cost of the telegraph and telexes, way, way back. More recently, the restrictive 160-character text limit of the Short Message Service encouraged this. Just so you know, Africans refer respectively to the sender and the SMS as in, “The boss will SMS you” while the Western world, are curiously less formal and refer to the texter and the text as in “I will text you.” So how did we end up dropping our vowels? I venture a current reason for this is the lack of a spell checker. Why worry about grammar rules like “i before e except after C when you can simply drop all vowels? I can cite examples but I am also not going to pick on any person or expose posts, as it will be rude and disrespectful. The net is neutral. Every user is allowed the privilege of being themselves on their Facebook walls, even if we don’t understand a word they say. I must confess the first few times I saw the missing vowels I found the challenge of interpretation exciting. Then I got bored. Really bored. Then frankly irritated. Finally, this gave way to relief that communication is actually happening! This is where I am currently.
Before you get angry over the new NetLingo — the missing vowel like an irritable bowel can be sorted with a remedy and a little effort. It is, however, much more difficult to rekindle the lost art of communication. Isn’t this just like the comic and the Mills and Boon? My personal advice, however, is not to get into this habit of dropping vowels — it is a difficult mode of conversation to get into, and worse it is an equally difficult habit to drop. There are free, automatic spellcheckers everywhere – even on Facebook – so there is no excuse to scribble gibberish. Even the online game, MindCraft. now has a built-in word processor. Of course, it is entirely possible that those who scribble along in this strange new language have no idea what they are saying anyway. Thami Jantjie, our infamously embarrassing sign language interpreter, comes to mind.
So, when your colleague sends you an unintelligible message, best to respond with a sage “that’s nice” or “oh”. You don’t want to be uncool, do you? There is a handy website, called Netlingo, that teaches, in a really enjoyable manner, an Internet word a day. The Urban Dictionary is another useful resource to translate babble. Above all, continue writing as you usually do even if people respond to you in strange code. Communicate on your terms. We need the tension for the benefit of the language. So please hang on to your vowels. note and respect the Constitution bravely recognising 11 official languages. I further enthusiastically support that sign language becomes the 12th official language. In this spirit, I cannot resist a plug for my university, DUT, that is the only South African institution to offer a full Information Technology qualification for deaf students. Cool. Kwl. Now read and note the following. It is a bilingual warning using language number 13, NetLingo. If you don’t keep the vowels I will unfriend you. f u dn’t kp d vwls I wl unfrnd u. Serious.
– Colin Thakur is the Director of the iNeSi e-Skills CoLab at the Durban University of Technology. He is a digital activist keen on upgrading the e-skills of the nation to enhance the quality of life. He lives and subscribes to the mantra one person- one connected device.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and so not necessarily reflect the views of the Durban University.
Source: East Coast Mail
