The future always has me second guessing what we are doing now. There are so many things I think about that I have no control over as they always seem to be big issues with our world. Me being one person has little to no say about the future. I am just destined to live it out and see what happens. Can I speculate what might happen with my own personal future? Sure, as I have some control over the outcomes. With languages, I think about what has happened in the past. Many languages have vanished from existence along with cultures. English language continues to change thanks to technology. So here is my best guess as to what will happen to us in the next thirty years.
TASK #12 SPECULATIVE NARRATIVES:
For the two narratives I have first created a wordle with words expressing how in the next 30 years we could have failed with our relationship with language. I always find speculating about things to be very challenging in my mind. I do not like to think about what things could be like when I know that I have little to no say on how things evolve in our society. I am just one person who teaches primary, I don’t run governments or anything so my mind always finds this challenging. I do think of myself as a dreamer but never takes anything more than that.
Speculative Narrative #1 “ How we have Failed with our relationship with language:”
As we continue to move into a world where we want things no and have little time to waste on anything we have lost our connection to people. We started to lose those connections the moment we start shortening words when we text people. Thirty years from now, people no longer know how to spell words in their languages. They simply post acronyms for every word in their languages. The cell phone has made sped up how people communicate with each other. In thirty years we will have lost certain words and speak with new acronyms. Acronyms make speaking quicker so you don’t have to waste your time talking to people in person. Social emotional connections have all been lost due to speaking with acronyms. Take a look at my Wordle that I have created with acronyms for words we have lost.
Below are a list of words and sentences we have stopped saying because of how we developed the use of acronyms:
LOL-Laugh Out Loud
SOS-Save Our Ship
TTYL-Talk to you Later
BRB-Be right Back
BTW-By the Way
EG- Evil grin
BBIAB-Be back in a bit
BBS-be back soon
KISS-keep it simple, stupid
OMG-oh my god
NYOB-none of your business
LMK-let me know
POS-Parents over shoulder
OFC-of course
WTH-what the heck or hell
YOLO-you only live once
SMH-shaking my head
Speculation Narrative #2 “How acronyms have improved our relationship with our language.”
Thirty years into the future we have come a long way at making acronyms for most of our slang words and have been successful at saving time shortening our sentences and words. Improving our cultures languages has given us freedom to use shortened versions of our English language. Acronyms have paved the way for cultures around the world to shorten the way they speak. They have allowed humans to remove words from sentences so that they can save time and energy to become more successful at the things we do in our daily lives. Take a look at this YouTube video from the Office in Scranton where one of our first tries at removing words from our sentences has saved for more work getting completed.
Thirty years into the future our relationship with acronyms and slang words will be a blessing. The improvement of slang into acronyms for our day to day conversations will have saved us so much time and energy that we can devote more attention to getting our jobs done and more relaxation time. Take a look at the video below to see some slang, abbreviated words, and acronyms you will need to know to be successful in the future.
References:
46 acronyms that are used often in social media . Izci, F. (Director). (2015, October 19).[Video/DVD] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkBiUhu440w
Kevins small talk-the office US. Webb, M. (Director). (2016, February 8).[Video/DVD] Los Angelas: NBC. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K-L9uhsBLM
Hi Tyler,
The change in language is really interesting! Have you read the book Feed by M.T. Anderson? It takes on a dystopian future where you have a feed implanted into your brain. In one of the scenes, you get to read song lyrics from that future and it’s very repetitive and doesn’t seem to have a story to it. In some ways, your future of SMS acronyms is like that too.
I wonder how effective speaking in acronyms would be because they are contextual (e.g., ECE, Early Childhood Educator, Electrical and Computer Engineering).
Hi Linda, thanks for the comment. No I have not read that book, I will check it out! I am doing my final project on acronyms and talking about the future, how our language will change because of them.
Tyler,
Love the Office clip….’word equivalent of underpants’ AWESOME 🙂
Funny how when acronyms are typed they look more intelligible than when he speaks, which sounds like a caveman. rofl jk lol
My project is on Melville Dewey (Dewey Decimal guy) and he was all about efficiency as well where he tried to promote it in invented spellings to shorten words for better use of space and time. For example, he shortened his name to Melvil. Same sort of idea as Kevin from the office, but with written language.
l8r,
Valerie
Interesting acronyms. #toofunny#OMG# . . . not sure if I am even using them right. Sorry, some people even talk in hashtags. The Office clip was hilarious. I think time and place also is important and the image one wants to portray. As the final clip subtitle states: ” How cool kidz talk these days?” Is it cool? I wonder if it is because a generation seems to own them (hmmm maybe grandparents should flood TikTok and they will abandoned it. EL or BAHAHAHA.) Some that are in use today are so inappropriate (not mentioned in your post) that even my adult kids are embarrassed to explain them to me. I wonder if because they are condensed into acronyms, their potency becomes diluted and they as they become more commonplace they also become more [shudder]”acceptable.”
Language is always evolving – the emoji for “tears of joy”was Oxford Languages word of the year in 2015. The word “MEH” ? What does that even mean? I told my then 12 year old that she couldn’t use the word if she couldn’t spell it . . . game on . . . she did 😀