The "Wassup" Generation

Recently, I had just started chatting online with a friend when she wrote 'brb' and disappeared. Now, what on earth was brb? I tried adding vowels to make it blurb,burb but nothing made sense. My daughter was mortified when I told her later. "How could you be so dumb? Brb means 'be right back' ". Oh...

Welcome to the "Wassup" generation, a bunch of highly inventive and original spellers! Their conversations generally start with "Hey, wassup" or "Yo, sup?". Sounds Greek and Latin to me! Actually, they are in such a tearing hurry to communicate, that they don't want to waste time spelling out words!

At one point, the "wassup" syndrome was so bad that my daughter was writing 'abt' for 'about' and 'u' for 'you' in her school essays until the English teacher put her foot down! Another problem is that there is no standard abbreviation or short form to use. Each person comes up with a different way of spelling that it is a wonder the internet has not become a Tower of Babel!

The problem is compounded because my daughter uses my mobile phone sometimes, and the messages she receives are hilarious (at least to me)! Actually, I should thank them for helping me keep Alzheimer's at bay, for I am really using my brain cells to decipher what my messages mean!

This phenomenon is not confined to the young. I have a friend, a Professor of English in a suburban college, who happily forgets all the rules of grammar that she painstakingly teaches her students, when she sends messages. I must confess I find them the most difficult to read.

So, here I am, a dinosaur among the mobile-literate! I am not able to find the connection between 'wz' and 'with' or 'crpn' with 'carpenter', but never mind. It is never too late to learn. I still have to type out my messages in full, with proper punctuation, but I am learning, I am learning.....
So, bi, c u l8r!