Chatspeak: Short and Sweet
Last year on my senior trip, while hiking up to see some castle or another in Germany, one of my classmates used OMG in a sentence. I didn't think much of it. The boy wasn't exactly a friend of mine, though I knew who he was and I was fairly familiar with his style of speaking. It turned out that I was in the minority.
"Oh-em-gee!" shrieked a nearby preteen tourist in her delightful British
accent. "He said oh-em-gee!" Apparently breaking the wall that divides cyberspace
from reality is comedy gold in England.
"Oh-em-gee!" repeated her friends, shrieking with laughter. "Oh-em-gee!" they yelled to each other, their hysterical cries following us all the way up to the castle. "Oh-em-gee!"
"Is your day that busy and jam packed with important tasks like monitoring NATO troop movement in the Azores to write or type out the words "that was funny?" demands freelance journalist and blogger Laurie Kendrick, who is enraged by any indolence on the part of a writer, no matter what the medium.
"Has it really come to this? Are our lives really so pressured, every minute occupied in so many vital tasks, every second accounted for, that we cannot afford the millisecond (no hyphen) it takes to tap that key?" agrees John Humphreys, who was furious at the removal of the semicolon from 16,000 words in the Oxford-English dictionary because, according to editor Angus Stevenson, "We no longer have time to reach for the hyphen key."
To the naked eye, this could seem like laziness or even ignorance. But as Dennis Jerz points out, "Tweens aren't typing "cul8r" because they are ignorant of, or deliberately flaunting, the rules. Such abbreviations make their peer-to-peer communication more efficient, which leads to immediate social benefits (in the form of more, stronger social connections), which motivates further text-messaging innovation."
On a very similar note, linguistics professor David
Crystal says that text messages still need to be understood, and no one
would bother sending (or paying to send) a message that no one can read.
Crystal also argues that some of these grammatical atrocities that we attribute to chatspeak have actually been around for a while. He also claims that "[t]here is no difference, apart from the medium of communication, between a modern kid's "lol" ("laughing out loud") and an earlier generation's "Swalk" ("sealed with a loving kiss").
He points out the similarities between the fear of chatspeak now and the
fear of the first printing press hundreds of years ago. People are afraid of
change, and it's usually because they're afraid of losing their power to
something they don't understand.
Those opposed to chatspeak seem to feel that, if it is allowed to continue,
it will work its way into the spoken vocabulary of general population in the
same way it worked its way into my classmate's. The numerous panicked essays
about the evil of 1337speak littered across the internet are proof that some in
the older generation take things a little too seriously, and have a rather
stereotypical view of chatspeak, not understanding that those who do use it
aren't trying to be anarchists, but efficient. The case of the girl who handed in an incomprehensible
essay to her teacher is a prime example of how misinformed some are on the
subject--the misinformed being those who actually thought this was anything more
than an urban legend.
Perhaps, then, a balance needs to be struck. Chatspeak is not excusable in all situations, and hopefully it never will be. But, in its place, it might not be such a horrible thing. Is it pretty? Not really. Do people have to use it? Of course not: many don't, and they're the ones who wind up looking more intelligent. Chatspeak is used because some find it functional, and even feel compelled to write whole books in it. Like it or not, chatspeak is already a part of the way many people express themselves, and will probably continue to be, at least until something even better comes along.
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Angela on Chatspeak: Short and Sweet: Text messaging and acronyms ar
R Chong on Chatspeak: Short and Sweet: Hahaha... I still get mortifie
Alex Hull on Chatspeak: Short and Sweet: I agree. Newspeak was formed f
Christina Celona on Chatspeak: Short and Sweet: The thing is, we have no need
Alex Hull on Chatspeak: Short and Sweet: I truly cannot imagine people
Christina Celona on Chatspeak: Short and Sweet: My sisters use chatspeak in co
Alex Hull on Chatspeak: Short and Sweet: It's a shame that I never saw
Christina Celona on Chatspeak: Short and Sweet: You really had to be there. Yo
Alex Hull on Chatspeak: Short and Sweet: It seems very many people wrot
It seems very many people wrote on this topic. I liked the angle you took by incorporating a personal experience of yours. The other tourists found it funny that he said OMG? With good reason. I find it silly when said out loud. As you said, "Do people have to use it? Of course not: many don't, and they're the ones who wind up looking more intelligent."
I was recently in a bookstore and picked up one of those books that you linked to and was slightly horrified. A whole book of online lingo? That's a bit too much for me.
While I agree that web shorthand, online lingo, or chatspeak is useful, I also hold true that it is called "online" for a reason. Using it in academic papers and in real life just makes you sound like an unintelligent bugger.
p.s. As much as I seem to be condemning those who use chatspeak in face-to-face conversation, my best friend can attest to the fact that I went through a two week period where I slipped out "omg" in conversations unknowingly. That's what I get for hanging out with my 13-year-old sister.
You really had to be there. You haven't lived until you see a high school boy get pwned by a bunch of giggling British girls in matching pink tank tops.
I never managed to finish reading TTYL. I had to strain my eyes to get through it. Eventually I just returned it to the library. Maybe if I'd cared about the characters more, I'd have made a better effort to look past the text.
Frankly, I'd be happy if no one ever used chatspeak again, but I'll settle for keeping it online. Who knows--maybe they'll finally invent a thoughts-to-text transcriber and chatspeak will vanish off the face of the earth.
It's a shame that I never saw and almost surely never will see that sight. I suppose I'll just have to imagine how intriguing it must have been.
I applaud you for your valiant effort because I couldn't even check the book out. Maybe the book would have read better for us if we were more religious users of online lingo... and maybe not.
The thought of a thoughts-to-text transcriber scares me ... but that's another topic.
My sisters use chatspeak in conversation...one says "bee-are-bee" (BRB) and "jay-kay" (JK), but she's always messing around when she does. My younger sister calls her friends her "biffl's" = Best Friends Forever for Life(?), but she's in middle school so that's different, and I've never heard her use anything else.
I don't think people who speak in almost nothing but chatspeak actually exist, or ever will--regardless of what the cell phone commercials tell you. It's just not practical for verbal communication.
I truly cannot imagine people speaking in just web shorthand as a means of main communication. It would be like inventing an entirely new language based on the one we have.
Have you read 1984? One goal of the governing body is to create a new language, Newspeak, that eliminates words that are unnecessary because we have more than one form of the word. Why have pretty and beautiful? Their concept is that you only need one.
While web shorthand is nowhere near this thought, our topic of speaking in just chatspeak brought the thought to my mind. Readers may interpret it as they like ...
The thing is, we have no need for another spoken language. In 1984, Newspeak was created because the government was attempting to erase emotions/thought. It had a purpose.
We don't have any reasons for mutilating our (spoken) language, so we won't. Unless we actually manage to get that lazy. But I think that's something else entirely.
I agree. Newspeak was formed for a direct purpose and that purpose was erasing their current form of language. Chatspeak was not created for that purpose (unless we're unaware of that).
But seriously, I think this has come back to the topic of web shorthand ruining our current language. And I think we have reached the verdict that it won't.
May it stay that way, forever and ever, on and on, etc. etc. ...
Hahaha... I still get mortified whenever I hear one of my peers saying "O-M-G," "L-O-L," or "J-K" irl. Don't get me wrong, I use those abbreviations often enough that I get the compulsion to express them in face to face conversations sometimes, but what I want to communicate is the nuanced meaning. When you say the abbreviations, a string of letters out loud, it sounds ridiculous.
But the thing is, many abbreviations originally used to type faster (by milliseconds, maybe, I know, but when you're chatting by IM, typing everything out does slow the conversation down more than seems natural in an actual conversation) have also now, in my opinion, evolved to carry slightly different meanings. Believe it or not, "omg" means something else to me than "oh my god." Slightly. I suspect how "O.K."'s original meaning of "oll's korect" now means what it does now, that's similar to what's going on now. lol doesn't literally mean laughing out loud, it's used to indicate appreciation of humor. And also as a filler, but that's another thing.
Anyway, I don't condone excessive use of chatspeak, though. And no, I doubt anyone really uses "GGTSUMO" (which I made up, but resembles many of those stupid-looking huge acronyms in the guidebooks) but sometimes it gets bad. neway, ru up 2 get me hw back? That extent is common enough, and also enough to threaten the comprehension of language. I guess. At a point I used chat speak like that too, and you get used to it... but, ah.
I do use the common things like "lol" and "homg" or whatever, as well as emoticons (which I view as an invaluable way of communicating tone when body language can't be seen) but I avoid over-using chat speak, because it looks "n00bish."
That's my whole speel on it. I'm a high schooler, by the way, and chat speak really does seem to be invading into my age group at least a bit more now.
Text messaging and acronyms are NOT a communicative innovation, it's pure laziness and it needs to be recognized as such. It truly bothers me that the English language is being tarnished in such a way that even professionals are deeming this worthy of effective communication.
Give me a break!
It's all very well that chatspeak sounds stupid, and isn't accepted by adults, teachers and such, but what of the coming generation? Most people find it easier to type 'Gtg' instead of Got to go. And it's not like it's impractical to do that, either.
What if chatspeak is actually a linguistic evolution?
The English language has evolved SO much over the ages, and look what it is today.
So what if chatspeak actually becomes the standard form?