If the 70s was the Age of Aquarius, the 80s the Age of Greed is Good and so forth and so on, then the current decade must be the Age of the Superlative.

Have you noticed? The best indicators are of course Twitter and Facebook where something is not simply mildly amusing but has to be HILARIOUS!!!! Or “SOOOOOOOO funny!!!!!”

And a new gadget is AWESOME!!!!!! As against “what a clever idea”.

Sorry, of course that should be AWSM!!!!!!

There is no middle ground any more. Any idea, object, person, service or even food is either the aforementioned AWESOME!!!!, BRILLIANT!!!!! (note the use of capitals and that damned exclamation mark) or it SUX!!,  BLOWS!!! is GROSS!!!!! And so on. It cannot be anywhere between the two it seems.

I despair personally. The English language (and no doubt others that have adopted bastardised Twitter and SMS speak lingo) are suffering. The richness of the possibilities is being reduced – or more correctly diluted – to the point where language is boring, predictable and worse, non-descriptive.

Critics of me will say that the Twitter system is the ‘new’ speak and 140 character limits champion brevity and ‘to the point’. Things get said and done faster, there is less ambiguity and more open and diverse conversation.

But that is a pity. Limiting yourself to declaring the Egyptian pyramids as simply “AWESOME!!!” with no other descriptive, or Charlie Chaplin or John Cleese as HILARIOUS!!!!” is almost an insult to these luminaries. And yes, Billy Connolly is SSOOOOOO FUNNY!!!!! But he is also a master story teller, has consummate (look it up) stagecraft, a word craftsman, a presence, entertaining and witty.

Keith Allen, the father of teen darling Lily Allen is also AWESOME!!!! But additionally he is an erudite Shakespearian actor, a brilliant orator, also a wit and displays a wicked sense of humour.

I worry that as the vocabulary of the young appears to shrink, (along with spelling and comprehension ability) our future screen writers and story tellers who will entertain us with TV shows, plays, films, busking and so on will give us less and less as they write down to the level of the viewer’s comprehension.

Can we compare Stephen Fry's QI to the sitcom Mike and Molly – mental agility and fast wit versus formulated low brow humour with a rehash of the same old low level sight gags? And a laugh track.

And where is the cleverness of the Naked Vicar type shows with their play on words and characters; or the BBC radio shows. If you are under 40 and have never listed to a Goon Show, do so and admire the writing, the use of words and the sheer GENIUS!!! of it! Oh and they are SOOOO FUNNNYYYY!!!! too.

"Quick, we are sinking! Swim for the bank!"

"On no, not there old boy. I'm overdrawn you know!"

Am I a literary snob? You may think so. I prefer to suggest I like expression and description rather than a throw away – and therefore lazy – line.

Hopefully, just hopefully, it is a passing fad.

What do you think?

By David Hague

David is the owner and publisher of AusCam Online. He has a background in media dating back to 1979 when he first got involved with photojournalism in motorsport, and went from there into technology via a 5 year stint with Tandy Computers. Following that, he ran a software distribution company on the Gold Coast and was one of the first to recognise the potential of Microsoft Windows.

Moving back to WA, David wrote scripts for Computer Television for video training for the just released Windows and Office 95 among others, and was then lured to Sydney to create web sites for the newly commercial Internet in 1995, building hundreds of sites under contract to OzEmail including Coates Hire, Hertz Queensland, John Williamson, the NSW Board of Studies and many, many more.

He went back into full time journalism as the Managing Editor for Channel 7's 'Gadget Guy', Peter Blasina's publications VideoCamera and Pixelmag, before starting Australasian Camcorder magazine when these publications were shelved. He lives at Sydney's Avalon Beaches nearly on the ocean front with dog Budweiser and in his spare time is a nut for motor sport, road safety, fishing, science fiction - especially Dr Who - and technology.

David can be contacted via david@auscamonline.com 

Comments(1):

1. agreed

   Yes I do agree with you, but I feel a lot of those who write like this are most likely teenagers who do it because "everyone else does it", or at least that's the perception, while we start to imagine all teenagers are the same, which they're not, as we weren't at that age. I'm a Melbournian, we're all supposed to be madly in love with football, I was never the sporting type, so there you go. I loved music, and I despair for "the youth of today" (feel free to roll your eyes), but last night a friend on twitter who is rather young, has just discovered The Beatles, and the boy next door who sings, and who has a great voice, loves Sinatra. One of the things which annoys me are SMS shortcuts, when you have a perfectly good keyboard in front of you... forgivable if using an old mobile, not so much in the era of smart phones. @stephenfry tweets, as you may know, and he's always articulate when he writes, proving that in this age of rapidly moving text, it is still possible to write properly. (and before anyone picks me up, I do realise I'm not perfect either, but I am trying by best).

   Thursday, March 31, 2011 Wolfie