13 de marzo de 2015

22

Author: Yoemichel Domnguez Gutirrez

Time is not only money, but a
rusher. Besides being a human
creation, time has also become an
unstoppable centrifugal power in
modern society. Nobody and nothing are out of its scope. Time is
the centre of all excuses and plans
because everything is measured
or valued according to the time
it takes. As a result, our lives are
remarkably conditioned by this
mythological god Chronos and
his laws.
At present, we are living in
a speeding-up century and
everything is wanted to be faster.
With a snap of fingers or a click
you could have almost the whole
world at your doorstep, have any
kind of information, buy anything
from ten thousand miles home
and get it in a week at least, pay all
your bills and chat with as many
friends or contacts you want
to. In short, the creature has become the master.
Even language has been rushed
by this invisible tick-tack. Social
networks and mobile devices are
forcing human creativity until
zipping language into codes and
symbols to safe time texting.
Experts have called it for a long
time language economy, but now
it has been turning into a kind of
parallel language that you should

It has been appearing

a new way to form
abbreviations called
vowel omission

Tourist Office

923 218 342

923 268 571

SALMNTICA Tourist
Guides Asociation

609 486544

AGOST Tourist
Guides Asociation

629 407300

Rural Tourism Info

Central Bus Station
Train Information
Taxi Information
HERTZ Rent a Car
AVIS Rent a Car

923 437 573

923 236 717
902 240 202
923 250 000
923 243 134
923 269 753

Emergency
112
Local Police
092
National Police
091 / 923 265 311
Red Cross
923 221 032
Universitary Hospital 923 291 100
Salamanca City Hall
923 279 100

Destroying or Creating
a New Language

know, if you are studying English

as a foreign language.
Language economy is not
exclusive to English. Several languages use this way to shorten
long names, phrases and scientific
phenomena. Among the different
language economy methods you
could form an acronym which is
a new word built from the initial
letters or groups of letters in a
set phrase and pronounced as a
separate word like LASER, Lig-

ht Amplification by Stimulated
Emission of Radiation, RADAR,
Radio Detection And Ranging
and SWAT, Special Weapons And
Tactics.
However, there is a spectacular
result out of acronyms. They not
only turn into new words, but
also are used as almost every part
of speech. Sometimes, these new
words can even eclipse their initial
meanings and be treated like common nouns or verbs such as table

or give. That is the example of

TASER, Thomas A. Swifts Electric Rifle. This acronym of a dangerous and painful electrical gun
has not only become a noun, but
also a verb. You can hear or read
that someone has been tasered by
a cop or that girl tasered my heart
with her eyes.
Lately, it has been appearing a
new way to form abbreviations
called vowel omission. This method deals with a witty strategy of

deleting vowels to create a more

difficult result to be deciphered. Perhaps this secrecy is not
intentional, but undoubtedly it
tests any sharp mind. Only the
frequent contact with this kind
of terminology may be the only
way to understand it. This practice occurs mostly among teenagers
or chatters who are constantly
improvising to shorten words to
safe time typing them.
Vowel omission (from now on
VO) is predictable, but not all the
cases are so easy to decode. Some
of the most usual VOs are msg
[message], thn [then], vry [very],
nw [now], bqz/ cz/ [because] and
thnx [thanks]. The method seems
to be simple. You only have to
omit vowels, punctuation marks
and capital letters. This way, a vo
text would be sry I cnt mk it on
tm/ trffics trrbl nd I jmd/ which
means Sorry, I cant make it on
time. Traffics terrible and Im
jammed.
At first approach vo is easy and
fun too, but there is more. If you
want to go with the flow, you
must add emoticons and numbers. So, texting a message or txtn
a msg with numbers could be way
more ingenious. 121 is the code
to invite your chat contact to a
private chat room, 143 means I
love you, so 1432 means I love
you too. Moreover, the acronym
l.o.l laugh out loud is not impressive anymore. Now, you could
find in your teen sibling or kids
chat history [always with their
permission] 55555. This line of
fives means l.o.l because in Thai
the number 5 is pronounced /ha/.
Whatever this way of communication will finish being is now
creating a parallel language which
is emerging naturally and uncontrolled in front of our eyes. Nonetheless, it cannot and must not
be stopped. Perhaps, we are just
witnessing a brand new language
or nothing more than an outburst
of creativity in the digital native
generation. Just in case, c u sn!
[See you soon.]

121 is the code to

invite your chat
contact to a private
chat room