Picture the scenario. The setting – a sweltering tuition
class packed to the brim with students, like prawns in Negombo fishing nets.
Enter lanky, lazy boy whose mother has forced him to be here
but forgot to make sure he wears a belt. Five minutes later, enter giggly girl
latched onto the arms of other girls who are equally giggly.
Boy sees girl.
Girl sees boy.
Boy and girl fall madly and immaturely in deep infatuation.
A network operation worthy of the KGB is soon put into
action, with mutual friends getting in on the scheme to do some background
research in order to procure girl’s number for boy. On finding out that he
wishes to make contact, her heart thumps in excitement and a grand overture of
romantic orchestral music begins playing in her head. Coy looks are sneaked in each
other’s directions as the girl’s phone beeps in a text message that she has
difficulty opening on account of her shaking hands.
Hi gurl u luk so Qt wil
u b my GF? Mt me @ da bus halt l8tr babee.
The music screeches to an abrupt halt as her face and fake
eyelashes drop. The boy has just revealed himself to be an utter moron,
incapable of constructing a proper sentence. Herein endeth all future potential
for courtship or his success in life.
At least, that’s how this writer hopes the story goes. There
is no excuse for bad spelling and lack of grammatical eloquence when it comes
to the art of wooing. The first step to making a good impression- stop
murdering the Queen.
To call the new-fangled language of the youth ‘irksome’ is
an understatement. It is frustrating....
ludicrous... discombobulating (At this point, any persons below 30 reading this
article would have turned the page, proving the point) at best and agonizing to
read. When did Sri Lanka’s grandiose
status of highest literacy level in Asia reduce to such use of rubbish? What’s
even more tragic is that the media celebrates the trend (rather, the speedy
descent of intelligence) by adding fuel to the fire. A recent scan through
social media resulted in a throbbing headache, thanks to the number of ‘lol’s,
‘Kewl’s and ‘baybeh’s floating around in web space.
Popular memes sporting lines like ‘Y U NO
DO DAT’ or ‘I can haz ur nomz?’ just
take that headache all the way to the intestinal region. Facebook should be
renamed Facepalm. Twitter now showcases more twits than tweets. The only
positive result in continuing this way without correction is that when
Armageddon comes and the aliens invade, at least we’ll all be speaking the same
language.
The younger the generation, the lesser the inclination seems
to be to type a word longer than three characters at most. Today’s children
seem to believe that punctuation is the name of a vaccine and syntax the latest
clothing material. Grammar would be what you call your mother’s mother.
Methinks official punishment on a national scale is
befitting for the misuse of the English language. Flog them all, and if they
don’t know what the word flog means, flog them some more. Put them in prisons
with wall-to-wall blackboards and make them write elaborate sentences a
thousand times over. Those violating the
rules of English on social media should be flagged as ‘textual predators’ and
shunned in public.
“Don’t be such an archaic prude”, a teenager chortles when
lectured on incorrect spelling. Apart
from points for knowing the word archaic, all he will get is a slap in reply should
he continue his case, but he prevails. “Chill, aunty… its SMS lingo. Put that
umbrella down.”
No, it is NOT any sort of lingo. It is vulgar and disrespectful to the beauty
of a 2500 year-old language, to distort it to a bunch of meaningless phonetics
just because your immature fingers are in a hurry to go play a game instead of
making the effort to craft your correspondence. So this umbrella will STAY
poised to attack unless the effort is made.
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