Yesterday (March 14) was Twitter’s fifth birthday. They published several statistics, including these: · 3 years, 2 months and 1 day. The time it took from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet.
· 1 week. The time it now takes for users to send a billion Tweets.
· 50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago.
· 140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month.
· 177 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011.
What didn’t find its way into Twitter’s statistics was the number of Tweets that contained misspellings, grammar errors and bastardized abbreviations for words that aren’t that long in the first place.
Before you get “all up in my grill,” rest assured I know that Tweets are currently limited to 140 characters each and that without some abbreviations, one would not be able to stuff all one wishes into one’s Tweet. (I also know that many Tweets, if not most, are a bunch of drivel that doesn’t merit Tweeting in the first place, but that’s a whole ‘nother discussion … as is Tweeting/texting to someone who’s sitting at the other end of the sofa.) What irritates me is that poor language skills are not only prevalent on Twitter and in text messages, they’re leaking into real-world conversation. Just last week I was standing in line at a checkout counter and heard somebody behind me talking on her cell phone. I suppose I must give her credit for not texting or Tweeting her chatter, but she definitely loses credit for actually verbalizing the abbreviations “BFF,” “OMG” and “TTYL.”
My goodness, have we gotten that lazy? I can only conclude that we have. You might argue that “BFF” and “TTYL” are quicker to say than their full versions, but what about “OMG”? Can you seriously argue that “OMG” is quicker to say than “Oh my gawd”? They’re the same number of syllables! Fine, type the short version. But don’t SPEAK it.
I hate to think how many grammar-school kids are going to grow up confused about the spelling of words such as “please,” “thanks” and “welcome,” just to name a few. It’s bad enough that those words seem to be disappearing from our spoken language. Most kids, when they use those words at all, spell them “pls” or “plz”, “tx” or “ty”, and “wc.” I’d like to think it’s just because they’re trying to keep their Tweets and texts short and fast, but I suspect it’s more laziness than anything else. Otherwise, why not just call the person? If you can’t call someone because of where you are or what you’re doing, you probably shouldn’t be Tweeting or texting, either. And if that person isn’t someplace where he or she can answer the phone, he or she probably shouldn’t be answering your Tweet or text, either. (The etiquette of Tweeting/texting is also a whole ‘nother discussion, as well.)
And complete, grammatically correct sentences in a Tweet/text? Forget about it. I received a text a week or so ago that read “Where you at?” It was a wrong number, but that’s beside the point: Why not “Where are you?” One more character and correct sentence structure would result in dismemberment or a horrifying death? In this case, I suspect poor spoken English has resulted in a poor text message instead of the other way around, but the end result is the same. I suppose I should be happy it didn’t read “Were U @?”.
Our words, our conversations, our social interaction – they’re all becoming abbreviated. More and more, it seems the only things that are truly connected are our electronic devices.
And that’s FU.
Today's blog is brought to you by PhantomScribe's friend and fellow former military public affairs instructor, Roni. (You may recognize her as a regular and like-minded responder here.) Roni is retired and living in central Illinois, where the coyotes howl at passing trains and the buffalo gnats rule the spring skies. She collects vorpal swords and keeps cats, mome raths, borogoves and slithy toves as pets. Roni enjoys snipe hunting and cornstalk topiary. Her sarcasm is legendary and her purse light, and she longs for the day when stupidity will no longer be the basic building block of the universe. Roni has been encouraged recently by other friends and family members to start blogging, so she is guest-ghost-writing this column as a litmus test. PLEASE BE NICE TO HER!
Of course, absurd advertising appears everywhere. Fort Wayne Newspapers, Inc. has begun promoting its Mother's Day tribute sections with a series of ads featuring captions that are more amusing than informative. This, we're told, is blonde Julie Smith's "actual vertical size" (poor thing), while brunette Julie Smith's "actual size will be larger" (let's hope so).
