by Anupama Vashishtha
Our generation has had the privilege, or should I say the misfortune, of witnessing and being the drivers of an epic transformation in the written language. Vowels and punctuations are today endangered species and correct spellings are mythical creatures of the past. Not a day goes by when I don’t encounter spine curling status updates reading “Mah lyf mah rulzzz” and the typical ones. And every single time I bemoan the death of the English language! Until one day.
So there I was frolicking from one website to the other, multiple tabs open, mindlessly browsing through random stuff on my Facebook timeline. It was in this course of joblessness that I was reading an article, a feature of an NGO, when in the comments section I read a post which quite literally defied every single grammatical rule known to man. My first reaction: revulsion.
My second: realization. Revulsion because of the outright brutal distortion of the language for no necessary reason. Realization because no matter how poorly written, I understood the sentiment. And that got me thinking.
Did it really matter whether I knew the difference between “its” and “it’s” as long as my message is conveyed? There has been a lot of debate and discussion on the effect of the internet on the language and I for one have always been of the opinion that the internet is the worst thing that could have happened to it. While I do grudgingly acknowledge the evolutionary mutation of the written language as seen in the shortened words and blatant disuse of vowels, the point of deforming words into lengthier incorrect versions escapes me. For example “because” to “cuz” and “you” to “u” is understandable (read twitter and sometimes 140 characters aren't enough to fit in truckloads of sentiments). But “god” to “gawd”, “cool” to “kewl” and “my” to “mah” are just inexplicable! Basically being a grammar Nazi today is not a good idea!
My second: realization. Revulsion because of the outright brutal distortion of the language for no necessary reason. Realization because no matter how poorly written, I understood the sentiment. And that got me thinking.
Did it really matter whether I knew the difference between “its” and “it’s” as long as my message is conveyed? There has been a lot of debate and discussion on the effect of the internet on the language and I for one have always been of the opinion that the internet is the worst thing that could have happened to it. While I do grudgingly acknowledge the evolutionary mutation of the written language as seen in the shortened words and blatant disuse of vowels, the point of deforming words into lengthier incorrect versions escapes me. For example “because” to “cuz” and “you” to “u” is understandable (read twitter and sometimes 140 characters aren't enough to fit in truckloads of sentiments). But “god” to “gawd”, “cool” to “kewl” and “my” to “mah” are just inexplicable! Basically being a grammar Nazi today is not a good idea!
But the same thing kept coming back to me again and again as I reflected further. Did the syntax matter as long as the sentiment was conveyed? After all, isn’t the purpose of language communication of sentiments and opinions rather than upholding the grammatical rules? Ridiculous as it may sound, if even a syntactically incorrect statement expresses one’s thoughts successfully, doesn’t that do more justice to the essence of language than a grammar obsessed freak pointing out the mistakes?How justified was my crying foul at every missed apostrophe, every misspelled word if the purpose of language was served?
This is one issue on which I have yet to find my moral footing. An elite privilege was all I could make of my obsession with the language.
Do share your thoughts on this topic! Also, this just cracked me up!
This is one issue on which I have yet to find my moral footing. An elite privilege was all I could make of my obsession with the language.
Do share your thoughts on this topic! Also, this just cracked me up!