Recently I received a text message from a friend of mine, which said the following:
"Sup b0ddy, how u dooging?"
Fearful that I had received a text message from a wrong number and hoping it didn't come with an attached picture of whoever the random person is while they are flashing body parts, I unlocked my phone and looked at the name at the top.
My friend, someone I had known for years, was speaking gibberish to me. For a moment I considered the final execution order: Un-friend person on facebook, send them a dictionary, slap them in the face with an encyclopedia should I ever see them again, and spend several hours eradicating anything in my possession that might have belonged to them.
Then I realized I'd prefer to watch Netflix than burn pictures and other items I might miss or still hold dear. So I didn't pull up facebook. Instead I sent a return message:
"I'm sorry, but the person you are trying to reach only speaks English and understands some Spanish. Please get a dictionary or some mental help from a professional physician, or try again later."
The effect was immediate, with my friend responding in complete coherent sentences. He even spelled most of the words correctly. I was able to cancel the order I put in for a boomerang to hunt him with.
Yes, a boomerang. Because you don't hunt people who can't talk with guns or bows and arrows.
The English language has always been changing. We have incorporated words from other languages, adapted to different pronunciations, and simply just talked all the time. There was even that one guy in England that decided to make up thousands of words that we still use today. He MADE THEM UP.
I'm pretty sure he went by the name of Shakespeare.
While we are changing our language, could we at least TRY to keep some semblance of coherence about our sentence structure? That was part of the reason why we have been such a dominant culture. A combination of adaptation and structure.
So give it a try, you know, spelling in complete sentences.
!t m!ght hlp u no wut uther peeps r sayin.
