The English Language

I see the English Language as an Art form that will soon be out dated by the arising technology use of the alphabet. Reading and writing in today’s world has become an increasing difficult task to understand if you’re over forty. Our society has become focused on breaking down every word into pieces of letters. The increasing media and marketers of products may to blame for breaking down the English language into these choppy little bites of what used to be words. Is the cell phone to blame? The on slot of technology has arrived and writing and reading may be an endangered species.

Can you imagine a book title that reads “A TL O 2 CTS”. I have to wonder what Charles Dickens would say if you asked him whom his BFF was. Can you imagine his epoch tale of “A Tale between Two Cites” without that opening sentence?  If you are not familiar with the book the opening paragraph is a complete sentence and is an entire paragraph long. The sentence itself allows the reader to intake a breath as its rhythmic in nature. Would this sentence be poetically the same if you read it the way our language has been translated to; It ws te bt o tm, It ws te wst o tm. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times, for those of you whom may not be familiar with the book.

I’m not saying that society has gone wrong and that this emerging language and chopping of words is wrong. We have been slicing and dicing the English language since man began to write. The best example I can think of in regard to this transformation is Shakespeare. Have you ever tried to read his words in the actual spelling and verbiage he originally wrote it in? Did you understand it when you did or was there a very wonderful teacher translating for you? I had a great teacher that kindly explained. However, even Shakespeare was rhythmic in his writing and reading it translated into todays English doesn’t give it that rhythmic feel or explosion that Shakespeare intended. I wonder how we would translate Shakespeare with this new text messaging language.

Eventually, writing will be replaced with you speaking into a machine that creates a visual image. Books will become a hard cover with a machine inside that shows you a visual image of what used to be written on pages. The dawn of a new age is coming and it isn’t Aquarius. We old timers need to back off and let the new age come in.

 I personally still have a Best Friend Forever and I do still write and read the English language in the manner I was taught. My grammar may be off at times and I may misspell a word or two these days; but isn’t that what spell check is for. You know that was leading technology of my day and age. LOL