The Other Version of Mind Your Language

On a much lighter note.....

There cannot be anyone who reads my waffle by now who doesn't know that I can be a bit pedantic about grammar. I'm not as bad as some. No, I'm not. I think we can have fun with language. Nevertheless if you've ever received a text message from me, you know how I am. Everything will be spelled fully, correctly, and there will be upper case letters, punctuation, and everything you might expect from...... GASP....written English. It was also noted this week by certain people (!) that when I type in French all the accents are there. Yes, I have memorized where the commonest ones are (ALT 0233). Because, well, because. Because it doesn't look RIGHT otherwise. I do this for me. Not you. You do as you please.

Except....................

There are times. I'm a happy-go-lucky person. Life is supposed to be fun. But OH FOR PITY'S SAKE. Is leaving out ONE LETTER really vital? Is your day so filled with important things that you cannot type a w? A w, I said, yes, a w. Are you finding a cure for all known diseases? Are you brokering permanent world peace? Are you developing an organic crop that will feed all the starving children no matter how hot or dry it is? No?

THEN YOU HAVE TIME TO TYPE A FUCKING W.

Yesteday, I saw with my own eyes:

Lo Fat.

At first, I thought it was a Chinese gentleman. But then the horror struck me. This was an abbreviation of low fat. An abbreviation from 6 letters to 5 letters. It was not an error. It was repeated throughout the piece, a total of 8 times. By the time I finished reading I was fighting the urge to go round to the home of the person writing it, and beat them to a bloody pulp with a bag of skimmed milk.

But I'm polite. I was well dragged up. I smile sweetly and ignore things like that, or they call me a pedant.

"Oh get over yourself Melanie," they say "It's nothing."

Nothing? This is an example of what it wrong with society! Oh yes it is!

First they leave off the w. Then they shorten everything so we tk lk ths. We have to guess the vowels, like Ancient Hebrew. They managed just fine, you say!

Next we start talking like it too. Eventually we'll just grunt at each other. We'll de-evolve and all you'll hear are noises like pigs.

But it goes beyond language doesn't it? It's too much bother to eat food so we'll just drink our dinners. They'll come in several flavours, maybe. It's too much bother to wear clothes, so we'll just have showers that spray us different colours. It's too much bother to play with our children, so we'll store them in crates until they are old enough to join in the grunting and gargling.

Once upon a time humans cared about poetry and art. Now, so long as things move fast, and go bang, they don't really need any other stimulation.

Yes, I know, it's a sign on old age. I also know every generation does this at a certain age, and the world keeps moving forward.

But I won't join in. I hereby declare I am not part of modern society. I do things my way. I even use semi-colons.