I absolutely love language.
But sometimes the way we use it (or abuse it) confounds me.
When I first moved to Australia it was a challenge.
Not to confuse your avo with your arvo.
Knowing why a fisho was at the servo… and what the heck were kings and tigers?
Then there were snags and sangers…
I could go on, but these are Aussie colloquialisms, and now I love (and use) them.
It’s the same for Aussies visiting the UK…
I remember a former student being horrified when she heard people saying it was ‘spitting’ outside!
We have this ability with lanaguage to say things (and usually be understood), without completely saying what we mean.
We abbrieviate, use colloquial language and slang.
No wonder English is so hard to learn.
Then there’s the acronyms.
I remember first encountering the CBD (central business district) in the late 1990s.
It wasn’t generally used in the UK at all then (that might be different now).
But it was all over my Aussie newspaper.
As a journalist in the UK we were taught always to spell things out in full (the full name of something) with the acronym in brackets after…
Then, you can just use the acronym.
But now I constantly see acronyms used with no explanation at all.
It’s just assumed you know what the RBA, ABS, ACCC, AFP, ATO, AEC etc. are and do…
You can’t do a thing without revealing your DOB and TFN…
That said, journalism is full of acronyms and abbreviations too: PTC, SOT, COS, NATSOT, SUPER…
Then in academia… EFTSL, ARC, ATAR, BCI, HDR…
I don’t know how many meetings I sat through initially as a lecturer not having a clue what was being talked about.
But this was in-house, industry stuff.
Now acronyms are everywhere (don’t get me started on sport or the military…) the list goes on and on.
With all the various digital communication channels we have at our fingertips… our language has changed dramatically.
Textspeak (txtspk) now rules.
Apparently the term textspeak was coined by renowned linguist David Crystal in Language and the Internet (2001), who later went on to write Txtng: The Gr8 Db8
Studying language at university in the late 1980s Crystal has always been a bit of a god to me.
The modern day version of textspeak originated from the need to be concise and cost-effective in early electronic communication, such as limited-character SMS messages.
Early social media such as Facebook and Twitter were also based around this with characters limited to 160 and 140 respectively, so what and how you wrote something were a prime consideration.
But to be fair – we’ve always had versions of this… shorthand for example, so you can accurately note down what someone says.
There’s even evidence of abbrieviated speech used in notes by Queen Victoria and 19th century poets.
Now though, it’s hard to send or receive any sort of message without using or encountering textspeak.
Full disclosure: me included.
I regularly use ATM (at the moment), not to be confused with an automated teller machine (ATM), and LOL (laugh out loud, or in some contexts lots of love).
I’ve previously written a blog titled YOLO.
So I’m certainly not preaching here.
But it just seems we’re all in such a hurry, and digital chat is so quick and easy…
No wonder so many people don’t like using phones to talk anymore.
What – have a real conversation? CUL8R (see you later)…
We’ve almost allowed this sense of speed to take over our basic communication.
Most of us rarely write letters anymore…
I don’t mean A, B, C, D… I mean actual hand-written letters.
Certainly not on paper – and rarely on a device.
I do write a few in-depth email ‘letters’ (especially around Christmas).
Sometimes it’s just nice to stop, and take the time to write…
I think this is why journaling has become so popular.
Time out to stop and write something.
Okay a journal is not meant to be read by anyone else – but maybe this is the start.
If we can enjoy the beauty of writing to help us relieve tension and stress…
Maybe we can relearn the art of writing more to each other?
I used to love having penpals around the world as a kid.
It seemed somewhat exotic to write to and hear from someone so far away.
But that romantic notion has long gone with digital communication.
Now we’re all connected, day and night, anywhere in the world, pretty much.
But maybe just once in a while we should just pause…
Take a few breaths and write something.
In full, with real words.
It might help us all to slow down a bit.
Or maybe I’m just old fashioned!
BFN, TTYL… (Bye for now, talk to you later)
Ann 🙏
*For your information. If you know, you know…