What a strange word...I went to an online dictionary and found out that a blog was a "portmanteau of a weblog". Then i went looking up 'portmanteau". For someone who wants to make their pride and joy by writing stories, my education has been sadly neglected. Blog. Makes me think of when i'm sick and i'm trying cough up stuff.
Anyhow, i found out that "portmanteau" means two words fused together to make a new one. So 'weblog' or the writing in a journal or log on the web, became blog. I can see why it wasn't wlog or weog. You can't pronounce them. But i like the other ones i found.
Spoon and fork - spork
guess and estimate - guesstimate
gigantic and enormous - ginormous
cybernetics and organism - cyborg
Pretty cool, but what's our language coming to? Are we destined to speaking to each other by web language (weblan for short in my words)? Will we be speaking to one on another on a cell phone and saying:
"I can't believe you said that! It was so LMAO" or speaking to someone in person by saying:
"BTW, IBRB" and leaving?
Language, especially for writers, is important. Granted, if we were writing for a younger set of readers, especially those in middle and high school, we'd need to sprinkle those acronyms throughout our writing and to be totally honest, in my new WIP i've used two of them. They were in context, but, I know, shame on me.
I guess that we all have to get used to new things, but I find that as I get older, I tend to keep in my safe zone. The things I'm used to, that make sense to me, are kept close by, while things that are totally foreign, like texting, I stay away from. My cell phone the other day, buzzed in my hand while I was talking to someone. You'd have thought it was a bomb the way i yelped. I hung up with my friend, looked at my screen and saw I had a download. What did I want to do? Took me a few minutes to say okay, and figure out how to do it. Can you imagine how it would have felt to me to see a bunch of letters that would have made no sense? But I was proud of myself. I only asked for help once.
I'm a retro-dinosaur, or as some of my students say, Mrs. Dorkasaurus. I'm not into the newest of gadgets. I just got rid of an 8 track player last year. I'm holding onto my albums and 45's, as well as my tapes. I do have CD's and last year for Christmas I received an mp3 player. I still can't figure out how to organize my songs. As a matter of fact, took me months to figure out how to put the songs on there.
What does this make me? Old? I'm not feeling that. Afraid of technology? Possibly. A fan of the English and American language? Absolutely. I'm refusing to change much. We've seen fashions come and go and come back again. I'm sure that somehow, someway, the language will be back, and dagnabbit!! I'll be here with open arms.
What do you all think of the new shortened language?
Nini :)
Participating author in Summer 2008 Pass the Plot
Powerful Women's Motto:
Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders & says...
'Oh hell! She's awake!!'
Mrs. Dorkasarous!
Welcome to the wild and wonderful (and addictive) world of blogging.
I think of it as a way to express myself without anyone interrupting me.
I'm the same way. Have albums. Can't work my own cell phone. No texting. I don't think of myself as old, I consider myself a 'traditional' girl!
And the new language makes me MENTAL! I hate when I see my kids writing stuff like: 'hey girlz I wuz gonna call but FWIW blah blah blah. I predict my grandchildren will have no idea how to spell real wordz!
Lainey
http://www.elaineforlife.com
I don't mind acronyms and smileys and abbreviations
but I don't like "wuz" "bo't" or those kind of shortcuts
All of these are just tools, some are more efficient than others, but the
whole purpose of language is communication, and language is a living
thing, so some words will stop being used and others will be coined
Laziness just for laziness' sake doesn't appeal
Hi Elaine - written any good books lately?
Hugs
Sadhbh
Dream Team 2008 Challenge blogs
No more excuses, just READ!
LOL..there you go!
I don't mind LOL, and a few others. But i teach in middle school, and when i see kids talking and using LOL, or BTW in their speaking voice, it makes me crazy. I teach remedial reading, so when the students have to write down what each paragraph means, i make them write in full sentences, without shortcuts...
And i've decided that I like to write what i want without any interruptions. This is kind of cool! ;)
Nini
Participating author in Summer 2008 Pass the Plot
Powerful Women's Motto:
Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders & says...
'Oh hell! She's awake!!'
You never should've admitted to Mrs. Dorkasaurus!
That name is going to STICK!
Add me to the list of non-texters, If you wanted to text message only, you could have a pager. It's a PHONE...so talk!! But please don't do it (talking OR texting!) as you're driving on the highway at 70MPH!!!
I agree with the fact that languages evolve, and words are added and less-used all the time. When was the last time you heard someone say, in common conversation, something like "alas" or "thou" or "whither" or "hark" (other than Christmas!!)? But I also agree that using "wuz" instead of "was" is annoying -- the word means the same thing, and it has the same number of letters, for cryin' out loud!
I use LOL a lot, and occasionally in a written note, but to me, saying it is awkward.
So, Nini, I guess the Mrs. Olkiewicz's of the future will be teaching web acronymns instead of preopsitions? UGH! I hope not!
aboard...about..above...across...after...
JodieG
Prepublished and workin' to change that!
A winner of the Big Finish 2 Contest, March 2008!
Participating author in Pass the Plot, Summer 2008
Kids actually say that?
lol and such out loud? Egad, I can't imagine. I use it in typing sometimes (email) but no texting for me! That would take more time than saying it wouldn't it?
Hey, I have songs on an Ipod, but don't ask me to organize them...and thanks for the education about blogging, I just learned what it was a few months ago, lol but never looked it up..
But hey! I'm not old... (I keep telling myself as I interview youngsters that were born when I graduated.. ugh)
maureen
It's never too late to be what you might have been --George Eliot
http://www.myspace.com/mbonatch
Acronyms and smileys and text-speech
The problem with all of these is that it makes us lazy. Instead of searching for the right words to express a sentiment, we use a smiley as a shortcut. the more we do it, the more difficult it is to find the right words to express that sentiment. But I too am a dinosaur. LOL (You see, I do it too.
)
"Perhaps what the average member of a group is capable of doesn't limit what a given individual can accomplish." -- Boston Globe, letter to the editor
March's Member of the Month!
Friend as a verb
There came a day recently I told my daughter to "go ahead and friend me." Then I just cringed. She was cracking up laughing, you know, ROFPMPLOL. She told me that she never gave it a thought when she and her friends used 'friend' as a verb, but to hear her mother use it was startling. She finds it funny when we IM and I use other common texting shortcuts, but she also considers it 'neat' that I haven't turned into a complete dinosaur. But I still prefer typing/writing real words with customary usuage. Maybe, it is a comfort level--after all I'm 32 years older than my oldest daughter. Even though I have been communicating online for 12 or 13 years, one of my close circle of cyber friends is made up of a group of professionals who have children with Down syndrome and four of us were newsletter editors for our local organizations. We shortcut some phrases, but for the most part we spell it out. We want to make sure that we understand exactly what each one of us is saying. Despite having never met we are each others greatest source of support and we want to make sure it stays that way.
Nancy