Languages are a funny thing. Each of them evolves and changes as social pressures change.
If the pressure is more or less stable, a language will survive many years without much change.
If the pressure becomes extreme, (more so, or less so), then the language may undergo radical changes in a short period of time.
Extreme examples of this would include a language totally dying out due to destruction of its supporting society, or a language (Latin, for instance, or 'eg.' for those that care) that has existed unchanged for centuries. Is this because of a minimum of change in Catholic Church supporting structure, perhaps? <img src="wink.gif" border="0">
In the United States, since the turn of the century, we have seen a unique experiment in the blending (or blenderizing? <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> )of people from all over the planet. Each culture has brought with it, not only their verbal languages, but also their physical language and cultural expressions such as Theology, diet, and others (et al - I love doing that. Who says Latin is dead?)
Speaking of physical language, I understand the meaning of the three-knuckle BOHICA (Bend Over Here I Comes Again), also known as "The Italian Wave". But can anyone tell me where the American abbreviation, which consists of a fist with the longest finger sticking straight out and up, comes from? (I find myself curious about the strangest things sometimes)
Anyway, the USA (United States of America - hmm maybe it started there? <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0"> ) is throwing this big, century long party, and mingeled into the mix is Technology. Drum Rolllll. Everybody gets to go wherever they want (mobility), and multi-media is thrust at them from nearly every direction (communication). <img src="frown.gif" border="0">
This planet has seen an increase in technology that is unparalleled in it's history. The pressure to name new devices and try to maintain a verbal language that's descriptive and flexible without being overly cumbersome to speak on any regular basis, is intense.
The more common, (older), examples of this phenomena include: TV - television, Car (?) - automobile, Plane - Airplane.
"She's a TV" doesn't mean that "she's a television". The context is defined by the object, 'she'. A more likely translation in this example might be "She's a trans-vestite" (a person who wears clothing of the opposite sex).
"Go get the plane" This could mean: "Go get the airplane" or "Go get the plane" (a carpenters tool for shaving wood). The audience must decide.
And underlying problem that non-native English speakers may not realize, is that many times native speakers don't understand what they're talking about because of cross-definitions of acronyms (phrases abbreviated to several representative letters). (VD is a fine example. Venerial Disease or Vehicle Dust). Or, the speaker misuses or misspells the word. Examples like 'to', 'too' and 'two' and (my personal favorites) 'there', 'their' and 'they're', are rife in electronic communications.
Collectively, we've become too lazy to bother with utilizing the established rules of the English language.
It becomes the reponsibility of the audience to determine the appropriate context of the discussion. If the audience doesn't understand the context, or has an overwhelming urge to only recognize a single context, then the message is not traveling from the speaker to the audience clearly.
This is where the real shame of this language modification (ie. abbreviations, acronyms) lies. If you're not communicating clearly because of a confusion of terms, then this form of communication will eventually die out. It's not efficient. I don't, however believe that it will completely disappear. Too many abbreviations and angelicized terms have infiltrated into the worlds societies to expire completely.
Also, our form of communicating has been modified through the Internet. Sometimes, witty or snide or totally inocuous comments can be mis-interpreted as witless, snide or inocuous comments, to the detriment of the audience.
So we (the collective 'we', meaning, of course, all persons of race, creed or color or sexual persuasion, without impyling an reduced consideration for anyone not mentioned in the aforementioned list - TCWMOCAPORCOCOSPWIARCFANMITAL), have started to include emoticons (smiley/angry/stupid faces) to forward a 'physical' expression along with the text. It used to be that we'd use proper punctuation, spelling and grammar to express ourselves. But that seems to have fallen by the way-side.
Which of the above examples of a disclaimer do YOU prefer? <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">
I swear (really, I do!), the english language changes on a daily basis. Even those of us who claim to be native speakers, (40+ years here, I think I started talking late - took a few years to understand this gibberish), can't keep up with all the new, old, discarded, re-invented, resurrected, 50's, retro-, this '-speak', that '-speak'. We just 'Keep on Truckin' <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">
My advice to non-native English speakers is "Don't sweat the small stuff" (what the h**l does he mean by that?? - don't give consideration to the small things in your life).
If your message is getting through (not 'thru' <img src="mad.gif" border="0"> ) to your audience, then you're accomplishing your goal. You're doing at least as well as a native speaker. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">
By the way, those of you with command of multiple languages have my enduring awe. As many of you may know, foreign language is not a required course in most USA schools. As a result, I believe Americans have suffered severely in their humanities educations.
To know a socities language is the first insight into their hearts and minds.
For those of you who bothered to read this entire diatribe - thanks for the soapbox, I hope it was clear enough for everyone here in the forum to understand, and for any punctuation errors, I apologize.
This was fun - I should ramble more often - NOT!
"Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible. "
- Stonewall Jackson
