While visiting recently in my mother’s kitchen, my brother mentioned that he hadn’t received my monthly newsletter in a while.
“Could it be the spam filter?” I asked him “Maybe you need to whitelist the email addy.”
I caught a glimpse of my mother’s bewildered face. “You have no idea what I just said, do you?” She definitely had the I don’t know what you’re talking about but I’ll be supportive and pretend it’s fascinating look.
Trooper that she is, she shook her head and cheerfully said, “No, but that’s okay.”
Albeit a little late in the game, I understood at that moment what a completely new language technology has spawned, a language that grows with each new fad. It started with “IM-ing” and has evolved into “texting” (now a verb in its own right) abbreviations: BFF, OMG, TTFN, ROTFL, and the ever-important one I thankfully have no reason to remember that warns of parents looking over the kid’s shoulder. But abbreviations were just the beginning. Then came Facebook, largely responsible for the metamorphosis of the noun friend into a verb, as in “If you friend my ex-boyfriend after what he did, you are no longer my BFF.”
Along came Twitter and its appropriate lingo: tweeting, re-tweeting, tweets, twits, etc. Now there are terms that combine English words with the Twitter diphthong (go look it up in the dictionary, like a big boy or girl). Think of the possibilities, some of which already exist: tweeple, mistweet (mistwake?), tweblog … we may all start sounding like Elmer Fudd (“When I catch that wascally wabbit, I’ll give him such a Tweet…”).
Perhaps the not-too-distant future will offer foreign language classes for various tech dialects. Don’t laugh; remember COBOL and BASIC? In the early days of computer science, proficiency in these acronymic computer “languages” was important. Today’s tech talk isn’t nearly that esoteric, but I predict it will flourish like toenail fungus, so prepare yourselves. Your grandchild may graduate college with a double-major in Tweetish and Textese.
p.s. (how many kids know what that abbreviation stands for?) If you need translations of any of the tech terms used, visit Dictionary.com. They’re probably already integrated into the vernacular.
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