bff jill

I'm all for change and progress and technology, but one thing that just drives me nuts is this whole evolution of the text language. I understand the necessity of abbreviations to make text messages more efficient, but the alarmingly rapid integration of this nonsensical jabber into daily language just makes me cringe.

The AT&T/Cingular commercial where the mother is upset at her kids (and the grandmother) for not texting enough has the equivalent effect as nails on a chalkboard to me. Not only do I not understand half of what the frickin commercial is talking about (despite the subtitles) because the entire commercial, even the narration, is done in text-speak, I can't tolerate how corporate America is helping to propagate the decline of the English language. (Ironically, so am I by blogging about it.)

Eloquence of our language has been all but lost over the past 50 years. Read a copy of various letters and speeches given by our past presidents Eisenhower, Lincoln, and Jefferson. You'll be amazed at the beauty of their construct. Now compare that to our modern day language and even the words spoken by our current elected officials, and there is no question that our nation has become dumbed down as a whole.

I saw a movie called Idiocracy recently in which Owen Wilson (or was that Luke?) is frozen in time and then revived 500 years in the future only to find that America has become a nation of idiots. Although the movie as a whole wasn't that great, it was a great piece of social commentary. And unfortunately a true insight into the on-going decline of our once great nation.