I speak English and this is my Arse.
While I may not be the most educated of women, I am someone
whose perception of life, the Universe and everything , has not been crafted by
computers, games, apps and attachments. Little plastic thingimagigs that ping
me, poke me or generally interrupt a damned good conversation with a ring tone
; to alert me that someone has posted a message of some description on a social
website of no particular importance,. These amazing relatively new inventions
did not interrupt my every living moment.
My sleep was never
disturbed by someone logging into a website which kindly ‘alerted me’ though
what is kind about being woken at 3am by a screeching bing /ding/ping escapes my understanding even
now...I was thankfully, in my youth, the recipient of 8 hours solid sleep in a
nice warm room devoid of flickering screens, and the absence of hums, pings and
dings and remains a fond memory. There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever of
telephones, i pods, i pads , TV’s, Music Centres, MP3’s and the like. In
essence I slept the sleep of the innocent and pure...beautifully.
I grew up with conversation as the main core of events in
the day. Conversations with my parents, sibling, and even...bate your breath
please...........with my teachers.
Those conversations are now almost a defunct part of
societies personal and interpersonal
communicative actions, instead ‘we’ send images via Twitter, Facebook and
Instagram. We text entire conversations in capital letters, single letters standing
for whole words and what is fascinating is that from child to aging old Nana we
are reading fluently what has become an entire language in itself which is
almost universal to our world and its individual nations no matter what ethnic
language is spoken.
OMG! R U OK.FGS.PM.ASAP.
16 LETTERS to ask Oh My God Are you okay, For Gods sake
Private Message me as soon as possible.
What continues to amaze me is that I too am
becoming proficient at such messages and then again, I find myself more and
more disgruntled, more annoyed than ever because the spoken conversation is
also adopting and adapting to this new phase of communication. We are beginning
to speak in shorthand.
I am not simply upholding English as my Mother tongue, I am waving a flag here for all languages, because the rot has set in amongst us all, with Franglaise and Spanglaise and the list is endless. The purity of our personal languages is being eroded. I am all for an easier communication, it is good that so many people can now communicate , but a little part of me still wants to preserve the language of my youth.
This is my ARSE I said, not my ass, not my ‘bits’ not my
situpon...my arse. Such a wonderful word, savour it as it spreads its
enunciation across your tongue...arse.
I came fifth in the race...because there is an F there,
right there in the middle but we hear fiTH, or my absolute personal dislike
siCth we have an X missing, have our tongues and teeth become so lacking in
ability we can no longer pronounce the X in a word..siXth surely. We don’t say
secual we say sexual, don’t we ? so why did poor old Six get a letteroctomy?
It is my sincere hope that out there, in the world are like
minded individuals who will preserve the spoken language, in all its richness
and quirkiness, from the encroaching and admittedly handy little shorthand for
the texting and the social media junkies. Protect and defend English from the
erosion of a rich and beautiful language which has become the focus for lazy
tongues and idle minds.
Or, as I suspect, am I turning into a Grumpy Old Woman.........................
