Learning a New Language

“Ano’ng IMHO?” I innocently asked my blockmates as I was going through this Blog. Thinking it was some highly technical term, I was utterly shocked when I found out it stands for “in my humble opinion.” This, again, is one of the constant reminders of how technologically slow I am. Like that time when I thought FTW (for the win) was just the reverse of WTF (what the *toot*). Indeed, engaging with technology, specifically people who are tech-savvy requires learning a new language: the language of acronyms.

An SMS, or short message service, as it implies, has limited length, which resulted in people making use of acronyms to fit entire conversations in 160 characters. Although IM, or instant messaging, may accommodate longer messages, such is still limited, and hence, has made it impractical to use full words, as well as proper grammar and punctuation. While some grammar purists may see this as a degeneration of language, some progressives see this as a natural evolution of language, that this phenomenon is neither right nor wrong, but a reflection of a prevailing culture.

Whatever it is, though, what is clear is that for us to survive changes brought about by technology, we have to continue educating ourselves on recent innovations, and at times, even learn new languages.