THE ERROR OF TEXTING IS UPON US

 

One thing that puts me off is seeing a text with words like 'dis' instead of 'this' or 'ze' instead of 'the' and so on, some words that I cannot even decipher. Of course, I am old school. I believe in complete words and sentences. I find pleasure in seeing correct spellings and good use of grammar. The challenge with the modern generation is that they have not learned how to define the text language from proper words. The former has strayed to the essay, application letter and curriculum vitae. You can even see some of it in a manuscript that is supposed to find its way to the Zambian market for other people to read. When we were young, we used to develop encoded language for the purpose of hiding information from our elders. That was the only reason. When it was time for school, the language became formal. The vocabulary that was exchanged in play grounds did not cross over to the classroom. In fact, in those days, economising of words was so good that even a telegram which was one of the first forms short messaging, was not compromised on quality.

 

Yet, today the overuse of the new shortened forms have down-graded the quality of writing. With the coming of the short messaging system contractions have lost their place and abbreviations and acronyms have since disappeared. What happened to words like aren’t, you’re, didn’t, won’t, etc. There used to be common abbreviations that could be used without offending anyone; std. for standard or s/holder for shareholder or stakeholder, ltd. for limited.

The problem with today’s short forms is that they do not have a place in formal writing. Additionally, the words are not commonly understood and seem to be limited to regions or cultures. For instance, the recent derivation of lol or Laugh Out Loud, in the local Bemba language cannot be used anywhere else. The relentless usage of text language has ushered in new way of writing. The question is, should this kind of writing be given a formal place?

Communication devices are equipped to keep a user as close as possible to the proper way of writing however, with time, the software meant for auto correct, spell check and auto spell adapt to the new words that are insistently types.

Another thing that irritates me when I receive a text message is when words are misplaced and misused. The consistent mix-up of homophones (words that have the same pronunciation) and homographs (words that are spelt the same way but do not have the same meaning). The misplacement of synonyms (words that have similar meaning) and antonyms (words that have opposite meanings). Common examples in Zambia; ‘the, there, they, their’ or ‘raise up your hand’ or ‘where, were, we’re’ or ‘leave, live’ etc.

English is not our first language but it remains the official mode of communication. This being the case, there is a small percentage of tolerating mistakes that seep into English as a result of first language interference. However, Zambia belongs to a global village and if we have to head ‘Toward a Zambian genre’, we must be able to tell our stories in manner that the rest of the world can understand and appreciate what we are communicating. The most unfortunate part is that even when we decide to use our own languages to write, we fall short on quality as most young people cannot even spell most local words. So whether you choose English or vernacular to write, use words properly, write grammatical sentences and get the spellings right.