Saturday, July 9, 2011

The new age Lingua Franca

As  we were awaiting our turn at the clinic,my son was animatedly conversing with his friend who happened to come by.All I could decipher were these words"mom doesn't give me any space".This led me to wonder why his skeletal frame needed more as I had already given him one full chair!That was when he explained that "space" meant freedom & not the literal quantum of place to be occupied!The immediate & prompt response to all our queries to children yields one answer "that's cool" irrespective of how oppressive the outside temperature may be!
           Welcome to the new world of "lingua franca",communication is now really "mind blowing" if I could dare to borrow a phraze very commonly used.Be it nightouts or parties or family gettogethers or simply a concert,the chorus of words uttered at the end of it "yeah,it was rocking"! The rocking that I knew was putting a baby to sleep in a cradle!
             Tune into any television channel,the oft repeated word,be it from the newsreader or the anchor or the host or the video jockey is simply"fair enough" - do they mean complexion,I bemuse,are we still in the age of apartheid! On other occasions,it is "somewhere down the line" - please don't search for the line as it as imaginary as the lines of latitude & longitude!
              The entry of computers in a big way in every walk of life has further made languages more complex as the "webs of the spider"- be it uploading or downloading.You better get the lingo right or else be "booted out"! Now,from grandma's recipes to technical knowhow is being "outsourced"!
               Are you planning to go on a trip,don't say holiday as it "passe" - better "unwind" at an "ecofriendly" resort.If you are on a shopping spree,never go to a supermarket,instead head towards a swanky "mall" replete with multiplexes (not age old movie theatre), food court (I had previously heard of only tennis courts!) & different garment stores(not the place where you stack your provisions)
               If you chance to strike up a conversation with a software professional all you hear are the words - schedules,projects, assignments or deadlines!
               The paradigm shift of the language jargon has assumed dismaying proportions & is now embedded in the society,we have but to adapt to new language formula or else we remain a square
peg in a round hole - a total mismatch! I am practising this latest fad 24x7 - How about you folks?
                               - SUNITA SRIRAM

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