We Are What We Type

This, is the normal pattern of my Instant Messenger conversations nowadays.

Let’s say I started off with a greeting and a question:

Me : Hey ho!/Whaddayapa! / Whazzap / Apa Di atas? / Salam / Oit / BUZZ!!! / GEDEGANG!!! etc etc
Me : What are you doing? / You there? / etc etc (optional)
Other Guy (OG) : <replies with appopriate reply to the greetings>
OG : <answers optional question>

<Starts small talk, if no important matter / question is at hand>
Me : u know about…(insert current issue here)…
OG : yeah/no…
…<Continue small talking>…
<Ends small talk>

<If there’s an important matter or question, skip small talk to this part>
Me : actually, there’s something….(insert question or important matter here)
OG : Go on…
…<continue discussing important matter or questions>…

(at this time, ideas start to shy away from our brains, we start to lose interest)

<Joke mode on>
Me : <Starts to joke>
OG : <laugh at joke / typed clever comeback.>
<Continue Joking>
Me : hehehe/hahaha/ (insert appopriate smileys here).
OG : hehehe/hahaha/ (insert appopriate smileys here).

<The Conversation ends here>

I wonder how much a Instant Messaging have made us lost our ethics of conversation, not to mention the degradation of the grammar. But language itself is a means of conversation, and one can easily say that the slangs, jargons, abbreviations used in an IM conversation is actually a lively language on it’s own. And languages used in IM, SMSes, and even at times emails, is far from being dead.

System of conventional spoken or written symbols used by people in a shared culture to communicate with each other. A language both reflects and affects a culture’s way of thinking, and changes in a culture influence the development of its language. – Encyclopaedia Brittanica