Through some aimless wandering on Twitter, I came across this video clip. About one minute into the video, the college girl who made the video assumes the role of, well, another college girl. She has a make-believe conversation with someone on the phone. So far, not particularly interesting, right? But what struck me as particularly strange was that she used chat/SMS lingo in her spoken conversation like it was second nature. I had to rewind the clip and watch it again just to take in what I was hearing.
Maybe I have fallen behind the times and this is how people really talk to one another now. I certainly don’t mind “chatspeak” in online conversations where emotions are not easy to otherwise communicate. But spoken outloud?
If someone were to address me face to face or over the phone using these online chat abbreviations, I would be mortified. Not only would I find it rude, but it would be difficult for me to take them seriously. To be frank, I would probably question their intelligence as well, as unfair as that might seem.
I realize that each generation has its own things. In a sense, also its own language. When my father was a young man, something was tight when it was what my generation saw as being cool. By now, kids probably have a completely different word for it. I’ve seen them use über, albeit never spelled correctly.
To quote Abe Simpsons from The Simpsons: “I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s it seems weird and scary to me.”
When I read the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I am in awe of the beautifully flowing English language. As a lover of words and literature I appreciate the flow of language – to me the most astounding form of interpersonal communication. As reading books is replaced by reading Facebook, and creative writing is replaced by tweeting, and more and more people would rather download a digital file than flip the pages of a real hardcover… To think that young people no longer take pride in their language; their command of it; their diction and clarity… I feel that this is a great loss.
Mika Salakka is a Finn living in the United States. He is a nursing assistant, a creative writer, a devoted husband, and an observer of the human condition. His interests range from music and literature to psychology, sociology, medicine, technology, and spirituality.
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I completely agree.
Recently, we had to shoot a spoof of a commercial for a web game we were doing at my television station and the set-up for the spot involved a couple talking about how the game worked. The female character was really into her laptop and really into this game, and at one point in the script, she ad-libed an “O-M-G” into the script.
I thought it was funny because her character was so over the top, anyway. And I thought it fell in line with the spoofy nature of the spot.
In real life, she doesn’t talk that way at all. Fortunately, I don’t know anyone in real life who does. If I did, I can’t imagine I’d attempt many conversations with them!
By the way, why would anyone say, “L-O-L” out loud when they could just laugh. Three syllables’ worth of letters over one little “Hah!” that’s only one syllable? Must be the new math!