JOIN USLiving in these times when the lexicon is driven less by the needs of linguistic evolution and more by the desire to seem on the social media hip, it is scant surprise that there occurs many an abridged slip between the cup and the lip.
Ever since the SMS or short message service cut short many an expanded articulation of expression, especially of terms of endearment, to toss up an abridged vocabulary that spouts “LoL” for lots of love, “TC” instead of “take care” and much more, social media communication has never sounded so short and tweet!
Abbreviations like “OMG” lead the pack of the most popular present expression of surprise or wonderment such that all things sundry on the social media, from a FB friend’s selfie capturing the height of self-vanity to a post taking political potshots at a Jaya or Maya, are all events worthy of invoking the Almighty.
BTW, for those who may still be uninitiated with this Almighty-invoking condensation of the English phraseology, “OMG” is the abridged articulation of the exclamation, “Oh, my God!”
Hah, well, that sure brings us to another gem from the social media-friendly lingo. “BTW” has become the present-day equivalent of any change of course in the flow of communication, whose underlying sentiment is the same as implied in this famous Sholay dialogue starring Samba with Gabbar, “(By the way) Kitne aadmi ththe, Samba (how many men were there?” Poor Gabbar that he wasn’t invented in this age of the social media and that his dialogues weren’t scripted in this age of BTWs, else much of the cult conversations of cinema would have had a more hip ‘cutting’ edge to them driven by all alphabets abridged.
Add to these other abbreviations that have become synonymous with this era of the SMS and social media, from ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) to TC and all that.
To “cut” a long story short, parenting in this age, when pre-teen progeny live off and live on all things Apps and can reel off the nuances of social media texting faster than the contents of social studies texts, is nothing short of a daily challenge to keep up with the social media- savvy Johns and Jones.
Or their new linguistic drones and colloquial clones.In not-so-distant times, the parental voice not only commanded authority but also elicited from offspring a vocabulary of unabridged responses to motherly commandments or forms of address. The maternal vocal chords calling out to the pre-social media progeny elicited a respectful Hanji, beeji from offspring belonging to Gen Ex, or a more modern-ish “Yes, Maa” or “Yeah, Mum” from our Gen X.
The simple “yes” as a sound of affirmation got replaced by the “yup” in a further generational upgradation to lingo that was more “hep”.
But now, it may not be off the mark to say that even Gen Y has given way to an even more upgraded generation of pre-teens and teens fed on vocabulary of the remix era coined by the Messiahs of the Mash-up, Mika Singh & Co.
And so the current crop that’s dished out a linguistic diet of “Chaar botal Vodka” and “Blue eyes, hypnotise” by the newly-crowned ‘Lord of Lyrics’ Yo Yo Honey Singh, fairly qualifies for a title better than Gen Y.
Little surprise that this new generational updating struck me the other day when my simple act of calling out to my pre-teen offspring elicited a form of acknowledgement with a new ring: “Yo, mom”. Enter, Gen Yo!
Yes, yes I realise there’s “no” denying now that this new-age lingo spells the requiem for the simple form of affirmation “yes”. But to have a humble “Yes, Mum” to be upgraded to the more ‘in’ “Yo, mom” means our years of comfort vocabulary goes unceremoniously “out”!
Thus, not to lag behind ‘Pre-teen Pashas of all Pronunciations’ cool and to keep one’s cool, here’s coining my own cool contribution to maternally friendly abbreviated lingo for brat-pack challenged parenthood in these times of social media-driven lexicon:
“Hey, DUDE!” (Don’t U Dare Exasperate).