A year or two back I wrote a column detailing the myriad ways in which I hate all the smileys, acronyms, abbreviations and sophomoric nomenclature that accompanies texting.
I thought, at the time, that terms like “lol” and “omg” were sounding the death knell for the English language.
Look, I’m not a member of the language police and have zero tolerance for the Grammar Gestapo-types who can’t see beyond the basic rules of punctuation they learned in eighth grade. Sometimes, being ungrammatical is just the right thing to do. Ask anyone who does it for a living.
But even my lackadaisical attitude toward the language was put to the test when texting first became a “thing.” I’ll admit I was a little horrified when texting shortcuts started finding their way into emails, newspaper advertising and even the seven or eight actual paper and ink letters still written and mailed in the U.S. each year.
Since then, “textease” has wormed its way into virtually every avenue of communication. But I no longer mind. Writing “lol” really is a lot easier than typing, “My goodness! Your astute comment was so amusing that I simply cannot help but laugh out loud!”
I like easy.
Any of my ex-wives will be happy to tell you: I am the poster child for doing things the easy way. In fact, if a thing cannot be done easily, chances are I will not do it. I lack ambition, direction, discipline and a few other things my father undoubtedly pointed out after I had stopped listening sometime around my 14th birthday.
The point is, once I realized textease is easier than boring old English, I was more than happy to jump on board. What little regard I still had for good grammar went right out the window.
Before I knew it, I was peppering my communiques with things like :), lol, rotfl, omg and @. The first time I appended a :) to a text to my daughter (who, as far as I know, has completely lost the ability to hold a pen or speak aloud into a telephone) she responded with, “OMG dad! I can’t believe YOU used a smiley!!! LOL!!!” I’d never seen her so excited. Based on her response, you would think I had just demonstrated the ability to fluently converse in Sanskrit.
From that point on, I was a convert. In fact, the only problem I still have with textease is that there simply isn’t enough of it. LOL, for instance. I see that one used all the time, but almost never in circumstances where someone would actually be laughing out loud. “I forgot to buy milk today! LOL!” Baloney! Nobody laughs out loud because he forgot to buy milk, not unless he’s an idiot.
Obviously, we need “shades” of lol. CQ, maybe, for Chuckling Quietly. SW, for Smiling Wryly. OPTLAYSJ, for Only Pretending To Laugh At Your Stupid Joke. Stuff like that.
Because of my aforementioned laziness, I won’t be the one compiling this textease dictionary, but someone should.
Once the language is fully developed, it could replace English altogether, save everyone a great deal of time and sound more modern in the process. Take the following example: “Yr 0oo0 have _ @ [] wood, @#$!! grn P* (_). M(o) are _@ n2 {} mud.”
That sounds SO much better than Yeats’ clumsy attempt at poetry: “Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood, Even where horrible green parrots call and swing, My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud.”
Or maybe it doesn’t sound better. With all the lol I’ve been doing lately, it’s possible I’ve lost my objectivity. Oh, well, I’m sure it’ll all work out gr8! ;)
Mike Taylor’s ebook, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available at Amazon.com. More Reality Check online at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com.
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