I get confused these days reading many of the posts on
social media, and text messages sent through cell phones, because of the kind
of new English that young people now write. The English language is without
doubt quite dynamic. In the last 200 years, it has lent itself to many
innovations, as cultural, religious, and situational codes have transformed the
language and extended the dictionary, with new words and idioms.
The kind of new English being written by twitter and what’s
app users, particularly young people is however so frightening and lamentable,
because it is beginning to creep into regular writing. Texting and tweeting is
producing a generation of users of English, (it is worse that they are using
English as a second language), who cannot write grammatically successful
sentences. I was privileged to go through some applications that some young
graduates submitted for job openings recently and I was scared.
This new group of English users does not know the difference
between a comma and a colon. They have no regard for punctuation. They mix up
pronouns, cannibalize verbs and adverbs, ignore punctuation; and violate all
rules of lexis and syntax. They seem to rely more on sound rather than
formal meaning. My fear is that a generation being brought on twitter,
Facebook, instagram and what’s app English is showing a lack of capacity to
write meaningful prose, or communicate properly or even think correctly.
To an older generation who had to go through the rigour of
being told to write proper English, and getting punished severely for speaking
pidgin or vernacular or for making careless mistakes of grammar and
punctuation, the kind of meta-English now being written by young people can be
utterly confusing. The irony is that it makes sense to the young ones, and they
can conduct long conversations in this strange version of the English language.
I’d not be surprised if someday a novel gets written in this new English, which
seems like a complete bastardization.
You may have come across the meta-English that I am trying
to describe. It is English in sound, but in appearance it has been subjected to
the punishment of excessive abbreviation, compression and modification. Hence,
in place of the word “for”, you are likely to see “4”, and so the word “forget”
becomes “4get”, or “4git”, “fortune” is written
as “4tune”, “forever” as“4eva”. The word “see” has been pruned
down to a single alphabet “C”, same with “you” now rendered as “u”. In effect,
you are likely to read such strange things as “cu” or “cya” meaning
“see you.”
Some other words have suffered similar fate: “straight” is
now written as “Str8”, “first” as “fess”; “will” as “wee” (I can’t
figure out why), “house” is now “haus”; “help” has been reduced
to “epp”; (“who have you epped?”) instead of the phrase “kind of”,
what you get is “kinda”, “money” is simply “moni.”, the computer sign
”@” has effectively replaced the word “at”; “come” is now “cum”, the
conjunction “and” is represented with an “n” or the sign &, “that” is
now “dat”, “temporary” is likely to be written as “temp”, “are” as
“r”, “your” as “ur” “to” as “2”, “take” as “tk.” In place of “thank you”,
you are likely to find “tank u”, “with” is now “wit” or “wif”, and “sorry” is
commonly written as “sowie”. I have also seen such expressions
as“Hawayu?” (“How are you?”), or “Wia r d u?” (“where are the
you?”). The you? The me? The us? By
the time these new words get combined in what is supposed to be a sentence,
you’d have a hard time looking for the sense beyond the sound.
On many occasions, I have had to call the sender of such
messages to explain what he or she is trying to communicate in simple English,
and if it is on social media, I still often call for help. In recent times, I
have encountered such messages as “This kidney gist is giving me heddik. I
wee hold ya hand if you need kidney love you till we find a miraku. It kent
happun pass dat.” Try and help translate that into correct English.
And how about this: “As fuel don add moni, everybody don park dem moto for
haus.” Pidgin English? Well, may be. Or this: “B/c we d p’pl thought
#fuelscarcity was temp. with the fuel hike policy, high cost of living is now a
perm cond’n in Ng.”
Oftentimes, this special prose arrives amidst a number of
other confusing symbols, emoticons, memes, acronyms and abbreviations, looking
like a photographic combination of English and hieroglyphics. Some of the
more popular abbreviations include Lmao (“laughing my ass off”) lol
(“laughing out loud”), lwkmd (“laughter wan kill man die”), stfu (“shut the
fuck up”), omg (“Oh my God”), rofl (“Rolling on the floor with laughter”), uwc
(“you are welcome”), smh (“shaking my head”) brb (“be right back”), #tbt
(“throw-back Thursday”), #WCW (“Woman Crush Wednesday”), and such new
words as “bae”, “boo”, “finz”, “famzing”, “Yaaay”. Not to talk of
such expressions as “You should mute me now”; “get wifed-up”,
“birthday loading”, “you hammer”, “kwakwakwakwa.”
This paring down of
language gets really worse when it is further reduced to mere jargon that is
understood only by the young people who are adepts at it. You can take a look
at your child’s text messages or BB or what’s app and not be able to make any
sense out of the jumble of incorrect English, graphics, memes and pure lingo.
The danger is that sexually suggestive conversations can be carried out by two
young persons, texting each other, and a dinosaur-parent would have no idea.
What can any parent make out of the following for
example: “10Q” (it means, thank you), “1174” (this means nude club), “121”
(one to one), “143” (I love you), “182” (I hate you), “1daful” (Wonderful),
“2BZ4UQT” (Too busy for you, cutey), “420” (Marijuana), “53X” (Sex); “9”
(Parent is watching), “PAW” (Parents are watching); “99” (Parent is no longer
watching), “ADIDAS” (All Day I Dream About Sex); “aight” (all right), “AITR”
(Adult In The Room); “AML” (All My Love); “B4N” (Bye for now), “BF” (Best
Friend) and “BFF” (Best Friend Forever).
This resort to abbreviations, lingo and special English
reveals certain things about the growing up generation. There is a fascination
with speed- when they get on their phones and other appliances, they want to
get the message out of the way as quickly as possible, and they have a lot to
say. There is emphasis on secrecy and privacy: that’s why there is so much
concern about third party presence.
Many of the children who have become socialized into this
new mode of communication are not always able to differentiate between correct
and incorrect English, and this is why parents and teachers must be concerned.
It is possible to assume that the teaching of morphology and syntax in our various
schools is no longer as rigorous as it used to be.
Anyone who was brought up in those days on a compulsory diet
of Brighter Grammar By Ogundipe, Eckersley and Macaulay
and Practical English by Ogundipe and Tregdigo) would find it
difficult to write this new English being made popular on social media.
It would feel like an act of murder. Teachers and parents
have a responsibility to ensure that their children are able to learn the very
minimum of skills: the ability to communicate in decent prose. Some
persons may well argue that this may not be the most important of skills
required to live in a modern age, or that it doesn’t really matter in the long
run, but I really doubt if a time will ever come when the business of
communication will be reduced to a mastery of abbreviations and lingo.
The ability to write clearly strengthens a person’s ability
to think clearly and to communicate effectively. It should not be surprising
that many young persons these days, seem more at home in the world of gadgets
and electronic appliances. They are forever texting or playing computer games
and trapped in the electronic, virtual, space. They live both online and
offline, spending a better part of their day on websites, thus, their emotional
development is tied to this reality. Most parents lack the knowledge of
what happens in the social media, and while some parents are trying to learn
very fast, a knowledge gap still exists between them and their more digitally
savvy children. But this should not result in the abdication of
responsibility.
The abuse of the English language, and the inability to
write well, is certainly not the only risk that an obsession with social media
poses for young people. Parents also need to worry about addictiveness, exposure
to inappropriate content and liaisons: all kinds of paedophiles and sexual
predators operate online looking for innocent victims and luring them with
sweet lingo.
There are bullies
too, harassing and stalking their targets. Under ordinary circumstances,
parents have a duty to teach their children basic etiquette: this is even more
required as they relate with others and navigate both online and offline
spaces.
Back to the issue of language, our despair is slightly
moderated by the fact that the interface between man and technology through the
social media has also resulted in much useful creativity. New words have been
invented through the social media, which are now gradually finding their way
into mainstream English and the dictionary. In 2013, the word “selfie”-
referring to a photograph taken by oneself with a smartphone, or Ipad- was
declared the Oxford Dictionary Word of The Year.
Similarly, such words as textspeak, texting, sexting,
twitter troll, tweeps and emoticons, are becoming common words in regular,
daily communication. Words like “friend”, “timeline”, block” and “like” have
also assumed new meanings and recognition, the same with such other words
as: “unfriend”, “unlook” “twitter status”, “profile”, “trending”, “timeline”,
“twitterati”, “blogging”, “bloggers”, “tweet”, “retweet”, “hashtag”: all of
which have caught the attention of lexicographers as clear evidence of the
living and evolving nature of the English language.
If this is all that there is to social media and the English
language, there probably would have been no cause for alarm, but the emergence
of a generation of young Nigerians who cannot spell well, punctuate properly,
or get their tenses right, because they now write social media English may have
far-reaching implications for the use of English as a foreign language in our
society.
No comments:
Post a Comment