6.) The Manifesto on New Uses for Old Letters

Before I begin, I… hold on, brb.

All right, before I begin, I want to say that I very much dislike the abbreviation “brb.” Along with all of its other “Internet speak” counterparts, such as “lol,” “roflmao,” and “hbu.” Why do you type that you're laughing out loud? As a writer, I find difficulty in believing that this is what we’re coming to. Language is organic, always changing, but now it’s changing faster than it ever has before. In a single generation, with essentially a single invention, English has gone from long, tedious words like “thank you” to much simpler, easy-to-say words like “ty.” Wait, that’s not a word. That’s the company that made Beanie Babies. Personally, I think the point is very much defeated when you abbreviate a common courtesy to two letters. “Oh, wow, $2.4 million? TY!” See? Even capitalized and with an exclamation mark, it still sounds bad. If my long-lost step-uncle twice removed died under an asteroid and left me $2.4 million, I wouldn’t go to his funeral and say, “Hey, ty.” And I don’t think his will attorney would say, “Son, I’m sure if he were still on this earth, he would say yw.”

In my expert opinion – because I am an expert on my opinions – Interspeak makes the Interspeaker look uneducated. While I know that’s not true – hey, I just looked on Google, and both Interspeak and Interspeaker are actual things. Cool. Where was I? Ah, yes. While I know that Interspeakers are functionally illiterate, I still can’t feel bad for them. I mean, I may spend seven hours a day on Facebook, but I haven’t stooped to this level. Yet. Pray I never do. Did you know that Iceland has a 100% literacy rate? I wonder what the Internet’s literacy rate is?

I'm sorry, were you making a point? I was too busy laughing to notice.

(Image courtesy of http://mattdunlap.org/)

Abbreviations aren’t the only part of Interspeak. Punctuation, capitalization, and other nonessential parts of grammar are also going out the metaphorical window. In fact, they’ve been kicked out the metaphorical service entrance behind a small inner-city restaurant. Many a meme is founded on this concept. I don’t think I need to bore you with a lecture on memes, as you probably already know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, follow the links. But the lack of capitalization of “I,” writing “and” for “a” (which I still don’t understand), and leaving out periods really annoy me. Here is a sample sentence:

“hi how are you..i am good. did you get teh mesage I sent u. its and really good message, i think ull like it? brb kk im back. u miss me…i did. hey guess wut im teaching english as a 2nd langage 2mrow bye!”

This has got to stop. I really don’t understand how people (ppl?) can get by writing like this. After writing that last sntence I think i may be succumbing to interspeak? ttyl! Mnfsto, OWT.

Media has converged here.