Social Media And The English Language By Reuben Abati

An article written by Reuben Ababti.
I get confused these days reading many of the
posts on social media, and text messages sent
through cell phones, because of the kind of new
English that young people now write. The
English language is without doubt quite dynamic.
In the last 200 years, it has lent itself to many
innovations, as cultural, religious, and situational
codes have transformed the language and
extended the dictionary, with new words and
idioms.
The kind of new English being written by twitter
and what’s app users, particularly young people
is however so frightening and lamentable,
because it is beginning to creep into regular
writing. Texting and tweeting is producing a
generation of users of English, (it is worse that
they are using English as a second language),
who cannot write grammatically successful
sentences. I was privileged to go through some
applications that some young graduates
submitted for job openings recently and I was
scared.
This new group of English users does not know
the difference between a comma and a colon.
They have no regard for punctuation. They mix
up pronouns, cannibalize verbs and adverbs,
ignore punctuation; and violate all rules of lexis
and syntax. They seem to rely more on sound
rather than formal meaning. My fear is that a
generation being brought on twitter, Facebook,
instagram and what’s app English is showing a
lack of capacity to write meaningful prose, or
communicate properly or even think correctly.
To an older generation who had to go through
the rigour of being told to write proper English,
and getting punished severely for speaking
pidgin or vernacular or for making careless
mistakes of grammar and punctuation, the kind
of meta-English now being written by young
people can be utterly confusing. The irony is
that it makes sense to the young ones, and they
can conduct long conversations in this strange
version of the English language. I’d not be
surprised if someday a novel gets written in this
new English, which seems like a complete
bastardization.
You may have come across the meta-English
that I am trying to describe. It is English in
sound, but in appearance it has been subjected
to the punishment of excessive abbreviation,
compression and modification. Hence, in place
of the word “for”, you are likely to see “4”, and
so the word “forget” becomes “4get”, or “4git”,
“fortune” is written as “4tune”, “forever” as
“4eva”. The word “see” has been pruned down to
a single alphabet “C”, same with “you” now
rendered as “u”. In effect, you are likely to read
such strange things as “cu” or “cya” meaning
“see you.”
Some other words have suffered similar fate:
“straight” is now written as “Str8”, “first” as
“fess”; “will” as “wee” (I can’t figure out why),
“house” is now “haus”; “help” has been reduced
to “epp”; (“who have you epped?”) instead of the
phrase “kind of”, what you get is “kinda”,
“money” is simply “moni.”, the computer sign ”@”
has effectively replaced the word “at”; “come” is
now “cum”, the conjunction “and” is represented
with an “n” or the sign &, “that” is now “dat”,
“temporary” is likely to be written as “temp”,
“are” as “r”, “your” as “ur” “to” as “2”, “take” as
“tk.” In place of “thank you”, you are likely to
find “tank u”, “with” is now “wit” or “wif”, and
“sorry” is commonly written as “sowie”. I have
also seen such expressions as “Hawayu?” (“How
are you?”), or “Wia r d u?” (“where are the you?”).
The you? The me? The us?
By the time these new words get combined in
what is supposed to be a sentence, you’d have a
hard time looking for the sense beyond the
sound. On many occasions, I have had to call
the sender of such messages to explain what he
or she is trying to communicate in simple
English, and if it is on social media, I still often
call for help. In recent times, I have encountered
such messages as “This kidney gist is giving me
heddik. I wee hold ya hand if you need kidney
love you till we find a miraku. It kent happun
pass dat.” Try and help translate that into
correct English. And how about this:
“As fuel don add moni, everybody don
park dem moto for haus.” Pidgin English?
Well, may be. Or this: “B/c we d p’pl
thought #fuelscarcity was temp. with the
fuel hike policy, high cost of living is now
a perm cond’n in Ng.”
Oftentimes, this special prose arrives amidst a
number of other confusing symbols, emoticons,
memes, acronyms and abbreviations, looking like
a photographic combination of English and
hieroglyphics. Some of the more popular
abbreviations include Lmao (“laughing my ass
off”) lol (“laughing out loud”), lwkmd (“laughter
wan kill man die”), stfu (“shut the fuck up”), omg
(“Oh my God”), rofl (“Rolling on the floor with
laughter”), uwc (“you are welcome”), smh
(“shaking my head”) brb (“be right back”), #tbt
(“throw-back Thursday”), #WCW (“Woman Crush
Wednesday”), and such new words as “bae”,
“boo”, “finz”, “famzing”, “Yaaay”. Not to talk of
such expressions as “You should mute me now”;
“get wifed-up”, “birthday loading”, “you hammer”,
“kwakwakwakwa.”
This paring down of language gets really worse
when it is further reduced to mere jargon that is
understood only by the young people who are
adepts at it. You can take a look at your child’s
text messages or BB or what’s app and not be
able to make any sense out of the jumble of
incorrect English, graphics, memes and pure
lingo. The danger is that sexually suggestive
conversations can be carried out by two young
persons, texting each other, and a dinosaur-
parent would have no idea.
What can any parent make out of the following
for example: “10Q” (it means, thank you),
“1174” (this means nude club), “121” (one to
one), “143” (I love you), “182” (I hate you),
“1daful” (Wonderful), “2BZ4UQT” (Too busy for
you, cutey), “420” (Marijuana), “53X” (Sex);
“9” (Parent is watching), “PAW” (Parents are
watching); “99” (Parent is no longer watching),
“ADIDAS” (All Day I Dream About Sex);
“aight” (all right), “AITR” (Adult In The Room);
“AML” (All My Love); “B4N” (Bye for now),
“BF” (Best Friend) and “BFF” (Best Friend
Forever).
This resort to abbreviations, lingo and special
English reveals certain things about the growing
up generation. There is a fascination with speed-
when they get on their phones and other
appliances, they want to get the message out of
the way as quickly as possible, and they have a
lot to say. There is emphasis on secrecy and
privacy: that’s why there is so much concern
about third party presence.
Many of the children who have become
socialized into this new mode of communication
are not always able to differentiate between
correct and incorrect English, and this is why
parents and teachers must be concerned. It is
possible to assume that the teaching of
morphology and syntax in our various schools is
no longer as rigorous as it used to be.
Anyone who was brought up in those days on a
compulsory diet of Brighter Grammar By
Ogundipe, Eckersley and Macaulay and Practical
English by Ogundipe and Tregdigo) would find it
difficult to write this new English being made
popular on social media. It would feel like an act
of murder. Teachers and parents have a
responsibility to ensure that their children are
able to learn the very minimum of skills: the
ability to communicate in decent prose. Some
persons may well argue that this may not be the
most important of skills required to live in a
modern age, or that it doesn’t really matter in
the long run, but I really doubt if a time will ever
come when the business of communication will
be reduced to a mastery of abbreviations and
lingo.
The ability to write clearly strengthens a
person’s ability to think clearly and to
communicate effectively. It should not be
surprising that many young persons these days,
seem more at home in the world of gadgets and
electronic appliances. They are forever texting or
playing computer games and trapped in the
electronic, virtual, space. They live both online
and offline, spending a better part of their day
on websites, thus, their emotional development
is tied to this reality. Most parents lack the
knowledge of what happens in the social media,
and while some parents are trying to learn very
fast, a knowledge gap still exists between them
and their more digitally savvy children. But this
should not result in the abdication of
responsibility.
The abuse of the English language, and the
inability to write well, is certainly not the only
risk that an obsession with social media poses
for young people. Parents also need to worry
about addictiveness, exposure to inappropriate
content and liaisons: all kinds of pedophiles and
sexual predators operate online looking for
innocent victims and luring them with sweet
lingo. There are bullies too, harassing and
stalking their targets. Under ordinary
circumstances, parents have a duty to teach
their children basic etiquette: this is even more
required as they relate with others and navigate
both online and offline spaces.
Back to the issue of language, our despair is
slightly moderated by the fact that the interface
between man and technology through the social
media has also resulted in much useful
creativity. New words have been invented
through the social media, which are now
gradually finding their way into mainstream
English and the dictionary. In 2013, the word
“selfie”- referring to a photograph taken by
oneself with a smartphone, or Ipad- was
declared the Oxford Dictionary Word of The Year.
Similarly, such words as textspeak, texting,
sexting, twitter troll, tweeps and emoticons, are
becoming common words in regular, daily
communication. Words like “friend”, “timeline”,
block” and “like” have also assumed new
meanings and recognition, the same with such
other words as: “unfriend”, “unlook” “twitter
status”, “profile”, “trending”, “timeline”, “twitterati”,
“blogging”, “bloggers”, “tweet”, “retweet”,
“hashtag”: all of which have caught the attention
of lexicographers as clear evidence of the living
and evolving nature of the English language. If
this is all that there is to social media and the
English language, there probably would have
been no cause for alarm, but the emergence of a
generation of young Nigerians who cannot spell
well, punctuate properly, or get their tenses right,
because they now write social media English
may have far-reaching implications for the use
of English as a foreign language in our society.