Btw, ths s wat da gr8 English language has cme 2!

Believe me, there’s nothing that makes you feel older and out of date than the fast changing lingo and your absurd puritanism in trying to save a language that has fallen deep into the precipice of being a slanguage (my 20-something colleague tells me slanguage is a combination of slang and language)!

Forgive me being condescending to this new monster called slanguage, but in a profession where the written word needs to be honest to the good old Oxford Dictionary, I have been having growing problems in setting right the written word by all the youngsters around me. I can no longer explain why ‘why’ can’t be just ‘y’ and why ‘u’ needs to be as long-winded as ‘you’. Really, English language has long been inexplicable in content but the modern drive to sweep it clean of conservatism is quite an experience to be in the midst of.

As the language shrinks into the needs and confines of an express society, where saving time by hook or by crook is the only real currency for an entire generation in a hurry (still would like to know they are in a hurry for what?), I have had reason to get hyper.

There was time all those years ago when I was a teenager myself that I got grounded by my father for two days for merely saying “Oh s**t!” Today, lingo life has leaped to an “alag level of awesome.” And, btw (by the way) that too is quite a modern expression but one I am smitten by. But coming back to the lingo issue, mostly blamed on the need of SMSes to become Baconian due to space constraints, the new English words no longer correspond even to their original meaning. So, when a 16-something asked me at a party, “isn’t the chicken sick,” I wondered when the bird flu got back, only till she realised the concern to explain that “for us sick means cool and cool means tasty.”! There are many more: “Don’t go all salty on me” doesn’t constitute a warning against crying on your shoulder, it means “don’t throw bad attitude at me.” If an idea is “drippin” it is not soaked, it is “on fire”; a “balling” idea is one which is “cool”; and if I am “so fly”, it too means I am cool! If she is “oh so cold”, she is actually “oh so attractive”, if she is a “grenade”, no she is not explosive, she is “ugly” and if she is “hurt”, then too she is “ugly”! Not just that. If it is “dumb hot”, it is “very hot”, if he is “chillaxing” the young nothing is really feeling too lazy to utter two words “chill” and “relaxing”!

Another one of the fast generation was pursuing a story around Shilpa Shetty, I routinely inquired at a meeting why it was so delayed. “She’s preggars and UA,” I was told. Excuse me? A collective smirk at my age later, I was told patronisingly: “Well, she is pregnant and hence unavailable.”

And then there are this host of acronyms, those irritating, explanation-wanting, totally crazy (youth call them cool) abbreviations (briefs in young language) which power all kinds of online or text conversations today. Considering that almost everybody is texting instead of talking, acronyms can now make for an entirely new — and ever expanding — dictionary. Here are some in case you needed an update: CuSun: see you soon; IDK: I don’t know (I really don’t!!!!); MOS (mom on shoulder) much like PAW: Parents are watching; BRB: be right back; TDTM: Talk dirty to me; BorG: Boy or girl?; w/e: whatever! Really, whatever!!

In this ever evolving world of lunatic lingo, there is a fast growing list of new slangs getting far removed from their old slang meaning, forget the original meaning of the words in good old English! So today, being a “cat” no longer denotes either the original feline or the being the old slangy “hot and sexy.” It means quite the opposite: If your dress is “cat,” it is “drab” and if someone thinks you are a cat, you are lame and stupid! Going Dutch is just too old fashioned and parochial in a global kind of way, so “let’s go conti” which means go contributory;

All this may sound very cute, but the way the SMS lingo has pervaded all forms of communication, it is getting to be alarming. Despite the Oxford Dictionary adding thousands of newer word to the lexicon every other year, its bid to keep itself abreast of changing times has fallen flat. For, in the young generation, new words have become like new relationships: Short, sweet and entirely fickle. So many teachers have, at various meets, brought in the alarming subject of students going “nuts” on spellings and grammar, thanks to the SMS age. “Bastardisation of the language is Jack’s beanstalk of the modern world,” once a very concerned English language teacher told me. And yes, there is reason to be alarmed. India, till now and despite English being its adopted language, has been impeccable with grammar and spellings. Indian youth are much better still when compared to teens of other nations. You might be surprised to know that students in England are rated to be the worst in the world when it comes to grammar and spellings! Considering Britain is the motherland of the English language, the statistic is startling, but the fact is that nothing much is being done to curb this trend which has changed the contours of the language so much that it will soon become unrecognisable.

Meanwhile, I am battling to keep abreast with this explosion of brevity, much like the poor Oxford Dictionary. And, of course, I sung the elegy of Wren & Martin a long, long time back! Till next week, well, gtg!

Published in The Sunday Pioneer, 12 February, 2012