Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
It’s easy for little grammar mistakes to slip by, especially when you’re texting. The new millennials prefer texting over legitimate human interaction, and it’s no secret that text messaging has changed the way we communicate, but it has also changed the meaning of sentences, punctuation and grammar.
Most texts now are stuffed with emojis and enthusiastic abbreviations. A lot of screen time by the younger generation seems to involve reading or writing English that duznt look quite lye it shld.
My daughter, Liliana, recently celebrated her birthday and she had decided on not having a home baked cake as her party wasn’t for another week. But, a day before her birthday, she ceremoniously changed her mind and sent me a few text messages on what kind of cake she would like.
A six-layer multi-coloured Rainbow Cake topped off with a pink chocolate ganache drip frosting, pouring delicately down the sides, if it’s not too much trouble she kindly asked.
So that morning I set about baking the sponges, each layer individually coloured and baked, then came the assembly job with lashings of homemade butter-cream to keep the layers neat and smooth.
I was just about to chill the first layer of butter-cream when my daughter burst into the house, excited to see the cake in its development stage.
I eagerly anticipated her delight but unfortunately she stood transfixed and stated gloomily: ‘but it’s not chocolate’. Refraining from throwing butter-cream or worse at all I replied, but you texted: ‘Can t be chocolate’.
My daughter looked perplexed and retrieved her text message. Apparently she was walking whilst texting and had managed to omit the vital ‘i’ to the t, which completely changed the meaning. She had meant to text ‘can it be chocolate’.
After the initial shock, my daughter helped with the final decoration of the cake and it was delicious. Fortunately, most of the time, poor use of punctuation or grammar creates amusement rather than life-threatening danger.
Punctuation can potentially save lives though: ‘Let’s eat, Grandpa’ versus ‘Let’s eat Grandpa’.
A rogue full stop: ‘Thank you! Your donation just helped someone. Get a job’.
Hannibal Lecter’s version of a famous bumper sticker: ‘Love People. Cook them. tasty food’.
So I tried to tell my children how important it is to spend an extra minute or two and type words fully and correctly. My daughter then texted me: ‘DWBH, TTYL, LOL’ followed by a row of winking emojis.
Welcome to the new world of teen words …
