English Stands Corrected

George Bernard Shaw, the second most quoted man in the world (after that guy called Anonymous), once observed that eliminating the use of 'silent' letters in the English language could bring major economical benefits to England. For instance, typewriter-ink worth England's annual taxes could be saved, apart from the paper space that each silent letter takes up which could result in saving trees too.

English *is* a very phoney language ... due to the random phonetics it offers. I first realised this when watching the magnificent Chupke Chupke when Dharmendra questions Om Shiv Puri about the dissimilar pronunciation of 'do' and 'go'. Years later, Vikram (H8, Co-Founder of the BONDA Group - the drama mandali at IIT which expands as Birth Of Neo-Dramatic Age) explained to me how Sanskrit and Hindi are the most phonetic and, hence, scientific languages ever.

That's why they say that Sanskrit is the most computer-friendly language, and should replace English in programming.

However, there's hope for English. If the SIM-Generation finds its ways, English may well get a slap on its wrist soon. Earlier, bade-buzurg used to ridicule these youngsters who would type stuff like, "Hey, r u cming 4 da sho?" in an sms. However, in one of my humblest opinions, this is the most scientific and efficient ways to write the sentence using the English alphabet. Definitely much better than, "Hey, are you coming for the show?"

Yes ... it does not 'read' or 'look' good ... but that's because *we* are not used to it. 3 or 5 generations hence, the society will get used to this punctuation/grammar. That's how English will be (I am really hoping this) written, and read.

Many times, as a pseudo-entrepreneur (let's face it ... SportzVillage has assumed most of the risks with MeraSport which has cushioned me enough to keep me as a semi-entreprenuer), I hope and pray for some constraints to show up - especially when I am undecided about stuff. Constraints help in limiting choices, and this helps in making quick and efficient decisions. For instance, we didn't have money to advertise MeraSport - so we *had* to go the word-of-mouth way. Great decision, in hindsight!

Methinks, the difficulty in writing long sentences through a mobile keypad, and the constraint of 160 characters per sms, made the sms-users think about efficiency in writing. That's how 'You' became 'U', and "Come soon, honey, I am online" became "Cm soon, hnE, I m onlyn" ... 

Oldies like me (for the current SIM-Generation, I *am* an oldie, really) still like to write proper sentences in an SMS with all the correct punctuations. However, I have never found it hard to make sense of SMSes that are written the SMS-way. Infact, I love to figure out the shortest way to write a word without altering its pronunciation, and it's a pleasure when I find such innovation in the SMSes that I receive!

That's why ... if the current generation has its way, Shakespeare may well get a little uneasy in his grave ...

The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.