By Glen Turner – Special to the Sydenham Current
I’m becoming more and more convinced – the English language as we know it… is DOOMED!
Ok, ok, I use, and can put up with, “techno-speak” – lol, cul8r, omg, imo, ttyl8r, brb, biab, etc.
But… reading that the Oxford Dictionary’s “Word Of the Year” isn’t actually a word?
‘Tis true. Their “Word of the Year” is actually an emoji – the “face with tears of joy” emoji.
Go figure.
A word is a word is a word. Right?
Wrong, in this day and age.
I might be described as somewhat of an English language “purist”, I suppose, and I dislike bad spelling as much as I dislike the use of inappropriate grammar. After all, I was my school spelling champ for 6 years in Elementary school.
Seeing things like “Kwik Kleen” for a business name, or “renuzit” (renews it) to name an air-freshener… or “lite” to describe a beer, has always bothered me.
I remember marking a grade 11 research project, in which the student used “phahsillitys” (talk about phonetic spelling) when talking about a theatre building. “It was built as one of the biggest facilities in the country” was his drift…
I remember so many examples of horrid grammar and bad spelling that I could easily write a book about those topics.
Fun with words also includes looking at the new designations of job descriptions. A “teller” in a bank is no longer a “teller”, but a “Customer Service Representative”. A “janitor” is now a “Custodial Engineer”. A “clerk” in a store can be called a huge variety of names!
I read one opinion that suggested that the emoji is “not all that different than early humans using cave paintings”, i.e., as an augmentation to story-telling.
The jury is still out on that one…..IMO 🙂
brb – ttyl8r – lol – tc
