Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Musings from someone who sees stories everywhere.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

surfing through time

This morning while net-surfing, I chanced upon a personal essay which was published in 2006. Its about SMS lingo, which was an issue with many then, and continues to be. So in four years, have we become more cryptic-monosyllabic communicators in SMS code? Has language in its traditional form degenerated due to the prevalence of SMS?

I think not. We continue to speak and write the way we always have. New words and usages are finding their way into acceptability as a natural process. Andno, we are not letting sms-isms spill into other forms of communications overmuch. thought the other day, I heard a character in a TV serial say he wanted something done ASAP (used as a single word). Thats just one acronym, and acronyms such as jeep have crept into language long before sms was invented.

here's my essay on sms inDeccan Herald

4 comments:

Bob Sanchez said...

Hi Moni,
Forgive my ignorance, but what is SMS?

monideepa sahu said...

Hey Bob, hanks for dropping by. In our parts, SMS is what we call those irksome but oh so useful and popular little txt msgs we send all the time through cell phones:-

Ravi said...

ASAP was being used as a single word eons before the days of sms,atleast in the Indian Navy,that too with snap of the fingers...phew,am I not ancient!!

monideepa sahu said...

Thanks for dropping by and enlightening me, Ravi. Age or youth is a state of mind and you're as young and alive as you will yourself to be :-)