Afternoon De’Lite
Sunday, August 6th, 2006So, here I go again, bitching about modern society, just hold on your hats.
While walking through the supermarket the other afternoon, I found myself stuck in the refrigerated aisle face to face with more packets displaying butchered grammar and spelling than there are emos at a Green Day concert. There were more “Lite’s” and “Nites” than anyone needs to see in a lifetime. If I wanted to see bad grammar, I’d hang out on IRC chat forums, or talk to angst-ridden 12 year-olds on MSN/Myspace. What ever happened to brands with integrity and morals that wished to continue the tradition of some vestige of english grammar and spelling?
An article I read in the Herald Sun on Friday was entitled “OK, RU Purists Relieved?”, and it stated that a Canadian study had found that “abbreviations, linguistic shortcuts and phonetic spelling popular among SMS users pose no threat to the integrity of the English language”. Fantastic! So instead of being able to blame The Youth of Today for the decline of the English language, we have to suck it up and blame ourselves for buying lite donuts from drive-thru’s every nite. How can we let companies and advertisers help us destroy our lingusitic standards?
I suppose there are arguments to the effect that this is just another in the long line of evolutionary steps that English has taken since ye olde days. But I view it as something more severe, for with a decline in language comes a reduction in the possibility of self-expression, and with that comes a limitation on thought in general. And that just ain’t cool.
--> So, here I go again, bitching about modern society, just hold on your hats. While walking through the supermarket the other afternoon, I found myself stuck in the refrigerated aisle face to face with more packets displaying butchered grammar and spelling than there are emos at a Green Day concert. There were more “Lite’s” and “Nites” than anyone needs to see in a lifetime. If I wanted to see bad grammar, I’d hang out on IRC chat forums, (More...)