By Karthik Ganesh:
Just the other day, as I was surfing the internet, I received a message on Facebook from an old classmate: “Hey dude!!! Long tym. Hw hv u bn dng?” this got me conjecturing about the degeneration of the English language in the modern world and forced me to write this article so as to soothe my ego of considering myself to be a linguaphile. (I assure you “dat I hav riten an ossum article whch u wld dfntly fnd kewl & gr8!”).
In today’s world, we live a fast paced life and are engrossed in a rat race to establish our dreams. Since the advent of globalization and urbanization, the world has really shrunk, thereby forcing people to multi-task and work long hours so as to get their work done. As a result of which people today apparently don’t have the patience and time to type all the letters in a word and resort to a language dominated by slangs and improvised lingo.
The paradoxes of the modern day world have ensured that the people who still adhere to using conventional forms of language during communication actually have become ‘writers’. Gone are those nostalgic days of my childhood when I used to eagerly wait for a letter from my grandfather who, with his simple and effective words would give me an enamouring picture of his otherwise morose routine. His letters were a testimony to the fact that your choice of words is responsible for shaping a perception about yourself in people’s minds.
People often blame the fast paced lifestyle we lead today as the pivotal reason for the rise in usage of slang in our daily communication. Alas, they forgot that being “kul” is all that matters today. The degradation of the English language can be attributed to the peer pressure among the youth to adapt to a new style of communication in order to establish their claim of being a progressive lot. A scrupulous understanding of the issue would convey to us that the English examination pattern at schools, excuses of English not being one’s first language, lack of a reading habit and dearth of a personal letter writing culture among people act as contributing factors to the issue.
English is a universal language and in order to survive in this industrialized world you require a respectable command and understanding of the same. The gradual acceptance of slangs and abbreviations such as “gn”, “gtg”,”btw” etc. in our day to day life has besmirched our understanding of English which is a scary proposition for the days to come. The coexistence of linguistic puritans and slang users has warranted that we still have an ecosystem where we can guarantee that the affinity towards slangs is a transient indulgence that can be tackled in the days to come.
PS: An appeal to all the English language lovers, English teachers and parents: “Ppl, u need 2 put an end 2 dis”.