Amglish In, Like, Ten Easy Lessons_ A Celebration of the New World Lingo - Arthur E. Rowse [78]
For leadership in this respect, let sports announcers and journalists be your guides. They tend to be on the cutting edge.
LESSON FOUR: BE CREATIVE WITH LANGUAGE
By buying or borrowing this book, you clearly show interest in enjoying language rather than being bored or agitated by it.
The word Amglish itself is an invention that invites other inventions in keeping with new ways of communicating. Am-glish users are always looking for new words and new ways of saying things. This is one way to make more friends than you can on Facebook.
Newish words don’t have to be instant successes. They don’t even have to make sense to become popular, especially with young people, for whom new words are like basic foods for the ego. The only requirement is that words be original. We can’t all be like Sarah in that respect, but there is no harm in trying.
If you cannot invent winning words, the next best thing is to pass on interesting ones you hear or see as promptly as possible. In this way, the cause of faster and livelier language can be further encouraged.
In fact, you can win prizes and gain prestige by entering one or more of the numerous word contests that are now the rage. One outlet is a dictionary that invites entries in an online daily word game. Just think of the fame, if not fortune, you may gain by dreaming up a word that becomes permanently enshrined in public discourse.
LESSON FIVE: ABBREVIATE WHERE POSSIBLE
In keeping with the basic aims of Amglish to save time and trouble, it is smart to shorten words and sentences as much as possible, except of course when you’re on the phone and extra minutes don’t cost much, or someone else is paying the bill. Keep an open mind for ways to be as brief and to the point as possible.
To begin with, make a detailed inventory of all the abbreviations you know and frequently review them so you will always be ready to insert them in all your writing and conversations. Your eventual acceptance in the extended Amglish family may depend not only on the extent of your verbal inventory but on your ability to use words freely, whether appropriately or not.
Take a lesson from the world of tweeting and texting. Learn how to say and write things with few words.
& don’t limit yrself only to wll-known abbrs. You shd feel free to think up new ones 2 go long with old standbys. Rmembr: with new abbrs, it’s not so much how suitbl they R but how orig they R, even if you are not sure they will B undrstd. And don’t forget numbers 2, 4, and 8 for inserting into your writing. They can become big hits with parents and teachers.
You should also have an ample supply of acronyms ready for instant messages and e-mails.
LESSON SIX: LET WORDS SPELL THEMSELVES
Everyone knows that Microsoft Word and other software programs can help solve spelling problems with apps like spell-check.
If you misspell a word as you type, you may see it quickly and automatically corrected or see a wavy red line under the word, warning you that the letters are not correct. You can then guess what’s wrong, but if you guess wrong, the red will linger a while and then die.
But automatic spellers are far from perfect, as earlier parts of this book have shown. The failure of the world’s greatest minds to solve this common problem is further reason to let words spell themselves. Automatic devices can sometimes make it worse than your own errors can.
The truth is that nobody is a perfect speller. And few people have the time to look up words in dictionaries, even online ones. It’s easier to blame spell-check; it is designed to take a lot of abuse.
Misspelling has become so common that it, like selective grammar, is becoming a good-buddy badge, especially in the world of e-mailing and texting. The key is not to get uptight about spelling, because being meticulous in such language departments can lead to your being considered a nerd or worse by others.
One consolation: even Shakespeare had trouble spelling his own name.
LESSON SEVEN: DISCONNECT THE DOTS
Punctuation is another trip to the dark ages.