There is Nothing Wrong With My Grammar
So I'm not claiming that I'm the Grammar Police but I'm also not going to let you assume that I would probably die if my laptop didn't have auto spell check. I have actually disabled that feature so that IF I do make a spelling error it will show up without correcting me so that I know where I made the mistake.
This disease started with the introduction of affordable mobile telephony to members of the public. Suddenly everybody I knew, including myself, owned a Nokia 3310 handset. Remember that brick? Sending a text message back then was about Ksh20 and in 160 characters you had to express yourself completely. Messages were shortened and edited to not surpass the given character limit or you pay an extra 20/- for just one character more. It’s your problem if you can make the text 320 characters to justify the extra cost. That is when pple strtd ritng lke dis. Vowels were being swallowed faster than Nyayo Milk and suddenly grammar went to the dogs.
You could be forgiven for thinking that I have never indulged in such hypocrisy. You see the halo on my head? It’s supported by my horns. I was actually very proud of myself when I used words like:
Gr8 - Great
4go10 - Forgotten
2ce – Twice
U – You
Your/ You're - Ur
The list can go on and on. I was the self-proclaimed queen of texting but at the same time I must say I didn’t indulge in text-speak when writing. To me, it was a whole load of bollocks to write in short form and when I finally got a posh QWERTY keyboard handset I stopped indulging in that nonsense-speak.
Now days I'm far worse than ever before. In the world of Twitter where you’re given a 140 character limit I sit there like a schoolmistress with a red pen poised to underline the wrong spellings. Facebook is magnanimous – they allow 450 characters per status update but even then you have morons and retards who drive me mad no end with simple words like Your and You're and not knowing the difference. Another one that drives me Mucking Fental is 'You should of called' instead of 'You should have called'.
Many times I can control myself no longer and just as many times I have been urged to go get some professional help for my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I think it stems from the fact that Mum would never think twice if she had to whip my knuckles with a ruler for bad spellings and nasty handwriting.
Having said that, I sometimes can't be arsed to correct myself. That's when the holier-than-thou attitude flows like the pictures that hit the net on Muliro Gardens. Stop sniggering. I know you saw them too otherwise how did you know what I was talking about?
While I can't expect the world to change their ways when writing proper English, I can urge not to let it all go to the dogs. Seriously speaking I am very attracted to people who have good grammar and know when to hyphenate and stick in a comma at the right place.
Rite. Enuf wid da rants. Am gng 2 go thru CN's nu wbste nw. Ltrz.
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