Emojis, Acronyms, and the Future of the English Language

Emojis, Acronyms, and the Future of the English Language

What's happening to English?
Where is the future of the English language? Is it evolving into a form of internet lingo called Weblish?

English is undoubtedly the result of several spelling and grammar mistakes that brought us all to the twenty-first century, but it appears that the internet is transforming the language beyond recognition.

If you've read any of my writings on grammar, you might assume that I'm about to launch into some devilish tirade about the demise of the English language.

Homophones
If you read at several internet articles, you'll notice that many of them have excellent formatting and are devoid of typos. However, they frequently have grammatical mistakes. To often appears as the two-letter homophone to, which is a term for words that sound alike.

Homophones frequently adopt their most typical form. There is frequently substituted for the three terms their, they're, and there.

However, despite how much I love my grammar, I can usually understand the meaning.

When I got close, all the monkeys screamed their heads off. They got peanuts from me.

Although I'll confess it was challenging, I believe this grammatical error can be excused. Shhh. Don't tell any of the grammar instructors I've ever had.

They might pass out in shock over my defection!

But when you stop to think about it, are there really three ways to spell the same sound? Do we really need three when a single word frequently has several meanings and you can simply wait for context to reveal them?

Take the word "match" as an illustration. In one setting, we might be discussing online dating to locate the ideal mate. Or perhaps we're referring to a thin stick with a flammable substance at the end. Even so, we could invite a helpless kid to play a fast game of Memory, and we could time her to see how long it takes her to match up all the cards.