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Ligua Franca

September 14, 2012

‘Q0’! My 70 year old aunt has no clue of this, neither do I, when she showed this on her facebook! This is a comment made on her facebook on their photograph which she has recently uploaded.

We all started guessing on the meaning of this unique abbreviation or shortened expression. But, no perfect meaning appeared!

Few decades ago whenever we wanted to shorten any word for fun or used to reverse the pronunciation of words as a codified language amongst the friends (we’d really mastered the skill), teachers or parents would immediately berate our endeavour. They would consider this as belittling or de-meaning of the language.

The word ‘slang’ was considered as abusive. Therefore, if you have used a shortened word that was an abuse!

Now, ‘you’ has been shortened to ‘u’, ‘happy’ is : ), ‘sad’ is : (, etc, etc ,etc.

Are we trying to use sign language or is grammar becoming obsolete?

Wonder, has anyone addressed ‘William Shakespeare’ as ‘Bill’ or ‘Willy’ or ‘Her Highness’ as ‘Liz’?  

Who could imagine that the successors of  ‘Columbus’ have shrunk the languages of his continent in such a manner that the Imperial ‘thee’ has curled up to ‘u’, ‘Colour’ has got discoloured & dehydrated to ‘Color’ and many more.

In this era of technology in information, we tend to speed up the process of communication by shortening the medium itself. If this trend continues, we may experience that the ‘words of expression’ are getting shrunk to ‘alphabets of expression’.


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  1. Safal Banejee permalink

    Human will go back to silence era. Sounds like o,e will be there. That will be good as there will be no air pollution and not even good for language & melody.

  2. santanu permalink

    Safal is nc (I mean nearly correct) . Human civilization is over the hill. It has crossed it’s zenith. Humans are going back to the days when they used to communicate with each other by grunts and grrrrrrrrrs . Though it took thousands of years for Homo Sapiens to develop their languages, mind you, downhill journey will be much faster.

  3. Gautam Dutta permalink

    Dear Bro, it is all about expressing yourself,,,, Rum or Ram…sounds similar,,?? All that matters is communication; it’s all all about conveying your thoughts, your perceptions, your inhibitions and displaying your anguish. Wren & Martin minted on the obscurity of this lust of systematic modern civiliisation of putting things in the right perspective, Like they say say, ”nothing is good or bad, only thinking makes it so..” If shortening a spelling, not apt with relevant grammar, conveys a similar thought/expression, then why & what instigates you to raise the cudgels..?? Do we still drive an Amby, wear Vimal, listen to a Murphy radio, write on slates with chalks or are we still contended with the road-side stall of bread-pakora, eluding the sight of McDonald’s..?? It is all about making ourselves ”comfortable”…. Last but not the least, going by the perceptions of my ‘predecessors’ in rendering their valued discourses, hope you won’t shelve yourself in the era of those pitch black telephones (shunning your valued Blackberry)..
    ”Man’s intrepid and anguished nature has forever earned for eternal freedom; some call it evolution, some call it progress”

  4. Gautam Dutta permalink

    Regret, in the 2nd last sentence, the spelling of ”earned”, ought to be ”yearned”,,,. hope you did not misunderstood it….

  5. Bittle permalink

    Not so long ago, I was quite convinced, and consciously so, that I would NOT succumb to these ‘modern’ abbreviations, this ‘language of youth’. And yet, today, I find myself unable to resist ‘u’ and :-), even in my work mails!! No doubt these short forms r convenient, but wat worries me is the disintegration of the grey matter that will invariably set in from not using grammar and spelling :-(!!
    But then again, that’s what the Wiis. PSvitas and DSs r for…….they tell me!!

    So just WHAT, in the name of Shakespeare, does ‘Q0’! mean anyway???

  6. This habit of using shortcuts is now invading even the official emails. The other day I had to submit a report and the feedback I got from my colleagues was in manner as if they were updating the Facebook status. Parallel to this habit of using shortcut have observed that in general people tolerance levels have gone down and the respect for elders and even I would have for younger ones has almost disappeared

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