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Mind your language

Issue # 96 - October 2007


I sometimes wonder what I would have thought had someone told me about the Internet back in “the old days”...
you know... back when all we had for communication were Stone Age tools like the telephone and postal service.
The exchange might have gone something like this:

“You’re still using a telephone? How primitive!”


"Huh?”
“You should use the Internet.”
“What’s that?”
“Instead of talking, you type.”
“Isn’t that what we did before we had telephones?”
“Clever dick... the Internet is instantaneous.”
“Is it beamed directly into your brain or something?”
“No, idiot. You use a computer.”
“Are these computer things cheaper than a telephone or a postage stamp?”

Needless to say, I’d have been hard to convince.

But now, like all dedicated surfers of the Net, I am well aware of Internet chat rooms, matchmaking services,
blogs, etc. As the whole world is rapidly becoming addicted to this new medium, I am enthusiastically going along
for the ride... with one exception.

What’s the Internet doing to the English language?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not Conan the Grammarian. But I do see good sense in basic punctuation, grammar,
spelling and word choice. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the Internet culture encourages its users to resort
to a bastardised use of language that is even more upsetting than it is insidious. The old forms and formalities of
written communication are being supplanted by a shorthand form which is rapidly becoming about as useful for
nuanced communication as Esperanto.

At the top of the list of offences is the now common practice of “verbing”.

I first noticed “verbing” several years ago. What’s “verbing” you ask? It is the practice of taking a perfectly
serviceable noun or adjective and using it to express an action.

“Access” is my favourite example. It was one of the first “verbed” nouns to enter the vulgate following the dawn
of the computer age. When I was younger, “access” was something gained, given or granted. A noun. Now it
more often refers to something one does. Example? Name one function of a computer that is not “accessed”.

This poor, unfortunate and unsuspecting word has been verbed... and it has been verbed to the point that its
corrupted use is now probably more common than the use that The Flying Spaghetti Monster (nose83) intended
for it.

I would be remiss in my pedagogical duties if I did not expose the villain in this tale of linguistic genocide. Stick
with me. I’ll get to the point soon.

Remember the nerdy guy back in high school who aced algebra and got that dreamy look in his eyes whenever
someone brought up the subject of differential calculus? Did you notice how he and his slide-rule were generally
regarded as extremely intelligent despite their inability to comprehend the necessity of subject-verb agreement
or the self-defeating nature of the double-negative? Remember the maths whiz who hated word problems almost
as much as he misunderstood Shakespeare?

There’s your villain. He and his friends developed computers and the Internet. They were the first to cruise the
information superhighway. It was their world long before they were forced to share it. As we liberal arts types
were gradually seduced by the sirens of cyberspace, we unwittingly entered a culture invented and dominated by
those who were much more comfortable with numbers than with words. If you think I am overstating my case,
take a quick look at your computer screen. How do you turn your computer off?
By clicking on the “start” button? Case closed.

So, my suggestion to all is to reject the culture of the computer geek. We may enjoy his gifts without also
assuming his cavalier attitude toward the expression of ideas that can’t easily be reduced to binary code.

Please repeat after me:


I will employ a salutation and a complimentary close in my emails.
I will write in complete sentences.
I will refrain from using solitary letters to represent words.
I will recognise the difference between nouns and verbs and use them accordingly.
I will restrict myself to the use of the gerund when feeling creative.
I will restrict the use of emoticons to my correspondence with small children.
Remember, all it takes for evil men to triumph is for good men to do nothing. The progeny of the English-
speaking world is depending on us. I know I can count on you.

Send your comments and suggestions to: marikeroth@yahoo.com

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