Amglish In, Like, Ten Easy Lessons_ A Celebration of the New World Lingo - Arthur E. Rowse [56]
In fact, without actually trying to construct such a verbal meeting ground for the world, the creators of today’s data transmitters have been unconsciously doing just that. Simply making so many devices so useful and enticing sets the stage for a common language.
A PHONE FOR EVERY BODY
If you build a revolutionary communication device, don’t be surprised if there is a human stampede to get it and use it. Recall the international scramble in 2007 to get one of the first Apple iPhones with third-generation (3G) powers.
Even a decade ago, nobody could have predicted that the number of mobile phones in the world would grow to 5 billion by the end of 2010, as reported by the UN telecommunications agency.9 Nor could many people have predicted the ready ability to have a conversation almost anywhere in the world for free or to take part in a conference from your home or office.
Before phones became so intelligent and companionable, there was also no handy, quick, and effective way for productive workers and others to do research, do business, or otherwise communicate in such an efficient manner even while walking the dog or waiting in a checkout line.
The mere presence of so many phones—approxim
LOVERS MADE PHONELESS IN INDIA
In the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, authorities have gone so far as to take cell phones from single women in order to prevent unarranged marriages. AFP, a worldwide news service, reported that two dozen couples from different castes had eloped after coordinating their escape by mobile phone.10
ately one for every adult in the world—is a powerful incentive for them to be used—and used to the max. It also sets the stage for a common language at a time when such an idea never made better sense.
The drift toward a single language is especially appealing to diplomats, tourists, business executives, doctors, songwriters, publishers, lawyers, drug dealers, ponzi schemers, and just about anyone else seeking a broad audience.
EVEN POOR FARMERS NEED CELL PHONES
One reason for the huge number of cell phone users is the aggressive sales tactics of manufacturers. Most of them have focused on the affluent end of the social scale. But Nokia, the Finnish phone company, has tapped into the pool of indigent farmers in India, where only 7 percent of the population has access to the Internet.
Nokia’s subsidiary aim is to supply prices and other market data to growers in rural areas where such information is hard to get. One farmer, for example, reportedly learned that he could sell his onions more profitably in another city as a result of data he received by text. For the service, Nokia charged him only $1.35 per month. The firm says more than 6 million people had signed up for the service in India, Indonesia, and China by November 2010. Next market: Nigeria.11
Cell phones have also given many millions of people who had no land lines the ability to communicate internationally. Donald Terry, an international consultant, says that in Kenya, for example, where there were never more than a few land lines, most people went directly to cell phones. Now almost everyone there has one, not only for conversations but for money transfers.12
But as a continent, Africa has lagged far behind the rest of the world in connecting to the Internet largely because of the lack of reliable electricity.
PHONE FRENZIES
The younger you are, the more likely you will spend nearly all your waking hours talking to or texting friends and acquaintances. It is not unusual now for high school students to send or receive 3,000 messages a month, the equivalent of 100 per day.
One fourteen-year-old girl in Redwood City, California, reportedly sends and receives about 27,000 texts a month, nearly 1,000 a day.13 She boasts that she can text one friend while talking to another on the phone, no doubt while doing her homework.
If a youngster is not part