My recent whatsapp conversation with a college friend of
mine did not go very well. I was totally baffled and was fumbling to even
understand what she was talking. The jargon and the chat acronyms she used were
so much that for every reply of her I had to Google to find out what it actually
meant. To save myself from embarrassment, here is an edited version of the
conversation:
She: Tejjjjjj! Lngtym. Hw ya doin?
Me: Heyyy Rosh! I am good! How are you? Real long time. Last
time we met was in 2008 I guess
She: IKR!
Me: ** Long pause** What are you up to?
She: M gd. Settled in US for now. But its AFU life here. Hey,
DYK wr Sandy s?
Me: **Long pause** He is in Singapore
Me: **Long pause** Yeah. Good old days J
She: Hey Y u tkn so lng to rply?
Me: Frankly, I am trying to catch up with your net lingo.
Google’s not helping either: P
.
.
.
She: Roflmao! K. GTG. Buhbyeee. XOXOZZZ
Throughout the conversation, I had this weird feeling that
she is bi-lingual, speaking English and in another language called Cyber slang,
unknown to me for which I was replying only in English. It felt weird and
awkward. At the end of it, I was not sure if I was really happy we spoke after
a long time. I kept thinking about it for a very long time. It was then I
realized that I too am a victim of this text lingo to a certain extent. Oblivious
to my own conscience, I found that I end up writing ‘thru’ for ‘through’; ‘n’
for ‘and’, ‘tomo’ for ‘tomorrow’ and so on.
Ideally, with all the digital communication platforms and the
world of internet at our fingertips, our vocabularies should have been
expanding, isn’t it? But it looks like it is not the case. Considering the
exposure which my dad and grandpa had to literature and books, I definitely
have an edge over them. But I can assertively say that my grandpa and my dad
have better vocabularies than that of mine. I just paid a little more attention
to what they did differently than us. I had my answers within days.
Spellcheckers:
At workplace, very often, I am required to review the requirement
specification documents as part of my job. For the records, requirement
specification is a document which lists the detailed description of how a
software feature is expected to work. My most preferred way of checking for
grammar and spelling correctness is MS
word spell checker. Is it that I cannot do it without it? Most certainly not.
But this gives me a quick overview of what needs correction and lists it out
for me, boom! my job is done within a short time. On the contrary, my dad, even
to this day, proof reads an entire article using his brains and eyes only. No,
he does not depend on spell check. His brain is processing it for him since 50
years; which is to say that his vocabulary is getting stronger and sharper
every day. It does not surprise me that my dad is called ‘walking
dictionary’ in his office.Whereas for me; since the computer is doing it, the computer is
getting smarter. Oh, the machine learning. In other words,
the machine is getting smarter everyday by making us dumb, you dumber.
Auto correction
Whatsapp has become the de-facto standard for all sorts of
communication. Text, Images, audio, documents and whatsoever format that it
supports, the texting which is widely used, comes with a serious issue tagged
with it called Auto correction. When I have interacted with acquaintances,
there were disastrous moments of me trying to say something but ended up saying
something else. I strongly have a feeling that they think I am some third grade
dropout who cannot even form basic sentences. Few disasters due to auto
correction were beyond repair; like the ones below:
- · Did you see Urine? Don’t miss.. Sorry Urine.. I mean URI.. Goddammit!
- · Hi Practice… What??? Sorry. I meant Prachi.. Ugh!
- · May be Dick by Hermaphrodite Melvin (While discussing about Moby-dick by Herman Melville)
- · Heyy.. Finally I found my GSPOT.. errrr.. GPS (She had fainted by then I guess)
- · I am yet to finish writing. I am a prostitute (I wanted to say Procrastinator.. Argghhhhh)
- · I once told my wife “I really want to meet you. But you are so damn fat” (She called me even before I said FAR not fat)
 |
| The most famous auto correction problem on iPhone |
My grandpa never had all these problems because from
Bhadravati to Bangalore, he used to send telegrams, wrote wonderful letters and
he himself typed his messages on postcards using a typewriter. He even sent us
handmade greeting cards on various occasions. On the other hand, The
Roget’s Thesaurus 1941 edition and the Rev. F. Kittel’s 1894 edition of
Kannada-English dictionary copies at home are almost in worn-out state
with torn illustrations and title page re-joined with an adhesive tape. I can even
see a few printing mistakes corrected with a pen. They are perhaps telling a lexicon
tale that we are not willing to believe.
 |
| A very old Kittel's Kannada to English dictionary |
With Auto correction, auto-complete and other such tools,
the flexibility in the language usage is lost by a huge magnitude. It is true
that words don’t get their meanings from dictionaries. They get their meanings
from how they are contextually used by writers and speakers. The more speakers and
writers conform to suggestions by machines, the less creative the language
becomes. Do you remember elders in your family asking you to read “The Hindu”
and “classic literature” to enhance your English vocab? Now you know why.
 |
| The postcard typed by my grandfather when my father was born - Year 1946 |
Genetics and Language
Have you ever noticed this about yourself or someone around
you? If you did your schooling in Kannada Medium, there is high possibility
that, even to this day, you’ll do all the basic math (addition, subtraction and
multiplication) in Kannada, way faster than English. Now there are demonstrated
research works that claim our linguistic capabilities are directly linked to our
genetic predisposition. So inclination towards technology for everything is
more serious condition than it actually is.
Over dependence on technology has already done enough
damage to our daily lives. Call me old school, but I really don’t like
technology invading our private lives so much that it obliterates our ability
to learn and master a language. There is a dire need to limit our dependency and
put a stop to chauvinism that we are showing towards Auto correction, auto
complete and cyber slang. Let our linguistic capability remain intact and do
not obtuse us.
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