English Language And Contemporary Shorthand Symbols And Phrases -Odeyemi Damilare Jeremiah

The English Language is undoubtly dynamic. In the last 200years, it has lent itself to many innovations, as cultural, religious and situational codes have transformed the language and extended the dictionary, with new words and idioms as well as coined meanings for shorthand.

The beauty of English Language, be it British or American, has long been appreciated by the use of shorthand in easy, unequivocal expression of thoughts and prompt delivery of opinions not only among those who saw the need for shorthand but also among individuals who love the accent and dictions with which seemingly long words are being expressed in a short form while the real meaning of such word still remain intact as it would have been if pronounced wholly.

As much as the use and importance of shorthand cannot be erased in everyday informal communication, the contemporary modification of it among the millennials has veered from the pervasive meaning of some shorthand, and as the usage of redefined meaning of these shorthand grow daily, it has meandered its way into regular writing. This can be traced to the fact that a bulk of our daily communication occurs within our informal circle, a sustained use of shorthand in informal communications soon grows into a habit formed to find its way over time subconsciously through semiformal into formal writings.

Being able to pen down lucid and profound sentences to convey thoughts and ideas to audience or readers has a long history. This is intertwined with individual’s astuteness by bearing in mind the principles of formal writing into the writing process of prose. Unfortunately, the paring down of English language gets really worse as it wanes to merely jargon exclusively understood by the young people who are adepts at it.

The manner through which some ilk of people express themselves in English Language on social media platforms; through articles, comments, attachment of Curriculum Vitae and other forms of writing, is however frightening and lamentable because the evolving mechanisms of texting and tweeting is producing a new breed of English Language users who cannot or who chose not to write grammatically successful English sentences. This brewing generation of English users do not pay any keen attention or regard to the tenets guiding English Language expression, verbally and in writing. All the precepts of Lexis and Structure, Syntax and Concord are completely ignored while emphasis is being laid on sound of words or it’s rhythm than formal writing.

To aging parents who had to phase through sequence of reprimand in learning to speak and write English proficiently, the type of meta-english now being written and fastly usurping the space of proper formal English leaves them with no prospect of seeing lucid expressions of thoughts and ideas as it used to be, even among the millennials.

Again, following the trend in English Language, parenting has become more of an arduous task than it used to be. Words that actually are English in sound but in appearance have been subjected to the punishment of excessive shorthand, compression and modification have engendered more difficulty in parenting because not only has it being tiring for parents to monitor their children’s social life via social media, the exposure to alien-like prose and exchange of words on chat pages could make trailing children practically impossible. For example, code words like 10Q (it means, thank you), “143” which means I love you, 1daful, meaning wonderful could be difficult for parents to understand. In addition, there are others which could help children ease past certain acts that parents would frown against and these also come with complexities. For instance, “2BZ4UQT” could be used to denote too busy for you cutie, “420” means Marijuana, 53X means Sex, “PAW” means parents are watching, ADIDAS means all day I dream about sex etc.

The danger of this newly introduced trend in English communication among the millennials is that sexually suggestive conversations can be carried out between two young individuals and even a sensitive parent would have no idea of what is being discussed even if he or she skims through the ward’s social media activities devotedly. If this is the case for parents that know about the social media world and all its sides, what is the fate of illiterate or technologically unexposed parents who do not know how to operate a smartphones or other electronic gadgets let alone navigating through social media platforms to spy on children’s interactions with the outside world?

ODEYEMI Damilare Jeremiah

odeyemidamilarefbi@gmail.com 08148996154