8 o’ clock, Monday evening, I sit down in front of my computer and receive the following e-mail:
‘Plz find enclosd dat article u hd rqstd. Mk ny changes as u c fit n lt me kno
Tk cr’
Immediately my cell phone beeps, indicating a message has arrived. It reads
‘Hey! Did u gt my mail? Chk ur inbox’
The next 5 minutes pass, trying to make head or tail of the message received. Another 10 go in deciphering the e-mail. But when I finally download the article ‘dat I hd rqstd’ and opened it only to find it full of the same atrocity of shorthand that would make anybody’s blood curl, I realized it was going to be a long night.
Taking a break and sipping through my coffee, my mind wandered to the age of thy and the thyne, and to my idol, none other than the great William Shakespeare, and it was with a shudder that I imagined, What would have been the scenario if he would have been alive today. Because in this fast paced digital world, where time matters and every character counts, nobody would have the patience of reading through his once treasured sonnets.
Would one be able to purchase ‘The complete works of William Shakespeare’ on a pen drive or a CD Rom, with an abridged version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ available on a 160 character SMS, which can be forwarded to your loved one, E-mail versions of Hamlet proclaiming ‘2 b or not 2 b, dat is d qstn’ Or even plays being adapted to the modern world. Would the main plot of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ be that instead of Antonio’s ships being lost at sea, his secret Swiss bank account is wiped clean by computer hackers leaving him unable to pay back Shylock?
While this brief stint brings shivers down my spine and makes poor Shakespeare turn many a times in his grave, it leads me to wonder but one thing. Have we become but not mere victims of ‘d slngs n arrws f outragus frtun’.
This is an article I have written which highlights the atrocities SMS and Email lingo has done on the beloved English Language, and how far we have come from the days of Shakespeare's sonnets.
If you do like my satire, please show your love by giving my post an upvote and commenting below.
