Little plastic thingimagigs that ping me, poke me or generally interrupt a damned good conversation with a ring tone ; (to alert me that someone has posted a message of some description on a social website of no particular importance). These amazing relatively new inventions did not interrupt my every living moment.
My sleep was never disturbed by someone logging into a website which kindly ‘alerted me’. Though what is kind about being woken at 3am by a screeching bing /ding/ping escapes my understanding even now...I was thankfully, in my youth, the recipient of 8 hours solid sleep in a nice warm room devoid of flickering screens, The absence of hums, pings and dings , remains a fond memory. There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever of telephones, i pods, i pads , TV’s, Music Centres, MP3’s and the like, throughout my formative years and subsequent teenage moments. In essence I slept the sleep of the innocent and pure...beautifully.
I grew up with conversation as the main core of events in the day. Conversations with my parents, sibling, and even...bate your breath please...........with my teachers.
Those conversations are now almost a defunct part of societies personal and interpersonal communicative actions, instead ‘we’ send images via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We text entire conversations in capital letters, single letters standing for whole words and what is fascinating is that from child to aging old Nana we are reading fluently what has become an entirely new language in itself which is almost universal to our world and its individual nations no matter what ethnic language is spoken.
OMG! R U OK.FGS.PM.ASAP.
16 LETTERS to ask Oh My God Are you okay, For Gods sake Private Message me as soon as possible.
What continues to amaze me is that I too am becoming proficient at such messages and then again, I find myself more and more disgruntled, more annoyed than ever because the spoken conversation is also adopting and adapting to this new phase of communication. We are beginning to speak in shorthand.
I am not simply upholding English as my Mother tongue, I am waving a flag here for all languages, because the rot has set in amongst us all, with Franglaise and Spanglaise and the list is endless. The purity of our personal languages is being eroded. I am all for an easier communication, it is good that so many people can now communicate , but a little part of me still wants to preserve the language of my youth.
This is my arse! I said, not my ass, not my ‘bits’ not my situpon...my arse. Such a wonderful word, savour it as it spreads its enunciation across your tongue...arse. As Prince Harry said, it is a proper word for your backside and I cheered when he used it.
I came fifth in the race...because there is an F there, right there in the middle but we hear fiTH, or my absolute personal dislike siCth we have an X missing, have our tongues and teeth become so lacking in ability we can no longer pronounce the X in a word..siXth surely. We don’t say secual we say sexual, don’t we ? so why did poor old Six get a letteroctomy?
It is my sincere hope that out there, in the world are like minded individuals who will preserve the spoken language. In all its richness and quirkiness, it needs protection from the encroaching and admittedly handy little shorthand for the texting and the social media junkies.
I will, where appropriate,defend English from erosion of its' richness and the beauty of its language which has become the focus for lazy tongues and idle minds.
Or, as I suspect, am I turning into a Grumpy Old Woman.........................
