Disclaimer: Any reference(s) to living beings in this post is directed at their ability to take it in the right spirit (hic!) and is cent percent intentional.
English.
I am glad I have the gene to appreciate the beauty of the language. A few people I know call it eccentric. Even my dad who is a very good exponent of vocal English chooses to call it peculiar, and attributes his reasoning to phonetics. As dad sees English phonetics, G-H-O-T-I is pronounced "FISH".
GH as in enouGH
O as in wOmen
TI as in funcTIon.
And there you go. GHOTI = FISH. Pronounce words the way you want. It's a free country.
I disagree.
Words are supposed to be pronounced and written the way they should be. I've always subscribed to the puritan school of thought as far as written and spoken English are concerned (though any vocabulary along the lines of these is always frowned upon. Substituting words with their verbose counterparts does not exactly qualify as creative writing).
It's surprising that in this context, man errs deliberately, as is his wont, in the world of type chatting. Sample this. Most of us would be used to these kind of statements:
Margarine man:
Instance #1: thr? i gt rmnded of smthn. rmembr tht plce in velacheri whr i stayd?
Instance #2: Ntn. Bi bi.
(Our man despises vowels, by the looks of it. And the letter 'g' too. But it's become routine to omit 'g', specially if it's a trailing 'g'. Somethin'. Anythin'. Nothin'. Geez! Where are they?!)
Obbu BOBbu:
Instance #1: Chk dat. im gng der. r u 2 cmin wid us or wat?
Instance #2: k. u hrd abt dem? dey r gng to cum 2 pilani!
(A clear obsession to replace th with d. Erm, I am not going to classify the other typos.)
Mr. Nose Picker:
Instance #1: cmon...tis s chennai...ppl can liv outside cols!!!
Instance #2: wodever. actualli, i hav watchd onli 3 movies..."d john nash" movie ,den "no country 4 old men" and den crouchin tiger hidden dragon..seriousli gud!
(Substituting Y with I? Why?! Might as well type 'y' and get the spelling correct, right? No, this is style, he says. 'Wodever'. )
And finally,
The Rather-Man:
(quoted verbatim from an online profile)
Passions: sittin idle gazin at te sky(sounds too poetic rather..)nyways dats wat i luv doin!!!chattin for hrs...nd all other stuffs vich r absolutely worthless...,
Cuisines: vnt given a try (?!)
(No comments)
I understand the whole fiasco started with a brilliant mobile phone provision called SMS. Rather frustrating to hit a key thrice to get a letter on the screen. T9 dictionaries are a waste of time and space (No point arguing how efficient the data structure is, Mr.Huffman. No one is using your algorithm, sadly).
So the practice carried over to keyboards as well. I for one find it much much easier to type "Are you there?" in double quick time compared to its chat lingo counterpart "r u der?"
And the worst part is everyone's doing it. I find it revolting to find people replying "S" to my questions. On my part, no amount of cajoling people to type out each word in its entirety has worked so far.
So I resort to derision. Not that it works. At least I get some kick out of the conversation.
Credits: Dad, Goldilocks and people who've made me get my act together for this post ;)
English.
I am glad I have the gene to appreciate the beauty of the language. A few people I know call it eccentric. Even my dad who is a very good exponent of vocal English chooses to call it peculiar, and attributes his reasoning to phonetics. As dad sees English phonetics, G-H-O-T-I is pronounced "FISH".
GH as in enouGH
O as in wOmen
TI as in funcTIon.
And there you go. GHOTI = FISH. Pronounce words the way you want. It's a free country.
I disagree.
Words are supposed to be pronounced and written the way they should be. I've always subscribed to the puritan school of thought as far as written and spoken English are concerned (though any vocabulary along the lines of these is always frowned upon. Substituting words with their verbose counterparts does not exactly qualify as creative writing).
It's surprising that in this context, man errs deliberately, as is his wont, in the world of type chatting. Sample this. Most of us would be used to these kind of statements:
Margarine man:
Instance #1: thr? i gt rmnded of smthn. rmembr tht plce in velacheri whr i stayd?
Instance #2: Ntn. Bi bi.
(Our man despises vowels, by the looks of it. And the letter 'g' too. But it's become routine to omit 'g', specially if it's a trailing 'g'. Somethin'. Anythin'. Nothin'. Geez! Where are they?!)
Obbu BOBbu:
Instance #1: Chk dat. im gng der. r u 2 cmin wid us or wat?
Instance #2: k. u hrd abt dem? dey r gng to cum 2 pilani!
(A clear obsession to replace th with d. Erm, I am not going to classify the other typos.)
Mr. Nose Picker:
Instance #1: cmon...tis s chennai...ppl can liv outside cols!!!
Instance #2: wodever. actualli, i hav watchd onli 3 movies..."d john nash" movie ,den "no country 4 old men" and den crouchin tiger hidden dragon..seriousli gud!
(Substituting Y with I? Why?! Might as well type 'y' and get the spelling correct, right? No, this is style, he says. 'Wodever'. )
And finally,
The Rather-Man:
(quoted verbatim from an online profile)
Passions: sittin idle gazin at te sky(sounds too poetic rather..)nyways dats wat i luv doin!!!chattin for hrs...nd all other stuffs vich r absolutely worthless...,
Cuisines: vnt given a try (?!)
(No comments)
I understand the whole fiasco started with a brilliant mobile phone provision called SMS. Rather frustrating to hit a key thrice to get a letter on the screen. T9 dictionaries are a waste of time and space (No point arguing how efficient the data structure is, Mr.Huffman. No one is using your algorithm, sadly).
So the practice carried over to keyboards as well. I for one find it much much easier to type "Are you there?" in double quick time compared to its chat lingo counterpart "r u der?"
And the worst part is everyone's doing it. I find it revolting to find people replying "S" to my questions. On my part, no amount of cajoling people to type out each word in its entirety has worked so far.
So I resort to derision. Not that it works. At least I get some kick out of the conversation.
Credits: Dad, Goldilocks and people who've made me get my act together for this post ;)
13 reactions:
i detest it when was is substituted with wuz or wus..can see no tangible benefit except a misplaced sense of coolness..and yes english is "ghoked" up as it is already..dont see why we have to make an extra effort
I find it so much easier to just type out the entire spelling of the word. Having to use sms lingo means i need to think about which words i need to use instead of the usual ones.
Truly, Mobiles killed the Typist's star.
(lame, I know)
Great post there. I had almost given up on reading your blog. ;)
I like typing out entire sentences myself. I even do the spaces properly when I sms. You know what happens as a result ? I am charged 3 messages instead of one. :D
Nevertheless, I still like it the old fashioned way. Agree with you.
P.S: You should allow anonymous comments you know. Not everyone has a blogger account. :)
@ 'Vijay':
English 'ghoked' up? I beg to differ. It's a language whose beauty lies in its peculiarity :)
@ Neo/Vernon:
Shake. Much much easier typing the whole word out :)
@ Iprod/Karthik:
Oh I don't mind being charged 9p for 3 smses instead of 3p for one :)
And oh I forgot. Karthik, not everyone reads my blog. I don't advertise it much, so I don't think there is any need to allow anonymous comments :)
i notice you forgot the 'in ya ya' incident ... :)
@Thrivikraman:
Oh, don't you think the person in question has enough publicity already? ;)
sometimes it is all the more comfortable with shorter words. Purpose of a language is to communicate. as long as that is happening, why bother??? i do agree that short forms irritate me sometimes.
@ Harini:
More comfortable with shorter words? I agree your purpose is to send a message across, but at the behest of someone else's irritation? It's not going to cost you a million bucks to key in 'you' instead of 'u'. 'Have' instead of 'hav'. A couple of extra letters should take you how much - maybe an extra second?
The trouble was understandable with cell phones - my dad agrees that typing out an SMS tests his patience. But then he's 57, and can argue that at his age, impatience at simple matters like this is not uncommon. But, at our age, well...its only a misplaced sense of coolness, as Psyche commented.
here goes... u shud ve pursued literature hari !! all right ! you should have pursued literature :)
Aah Nithu! Nice to have you too out here.
That second sentence wasn't too difficult to type out was it? ;)
ha ha.. too strong wen it comes to "words or rather language arent you ?? :)
You could say that. I make an honest effort every time I spell a word out. :)
Post a Comment