Lex-orexia - The Alphabet Diet of the New Decade

Following a recent trip across the pond, a very close friend called British attention to the apparent non-use of the Z (ok, Zed). Ironic I know, given that perhaps there has had to be some lever of compensation on the Queen’s English for where our American friends are zed-zealous, much to the detriment of the suffering S…? We say pot-ay-to, you say tom-ay-to and all that…who really knows?

Zed-Gate, however, has opened a hornet's nest on the deeper question of the alphabetical dilemma - In today’s text-tastic nation, are we at risk of losing an entire suite of vowels and speaking in a language that will soon require a full re-write of a new Xfrd Dictionary?

With email, text, tweet and all-round speech-free communication on-the-go I am as guilty as the next lethargic letter-writer of taking scriptorial short-cuts, and I openly campaign for the knight-hood of whoever invented Spell Check (now THAT is genius). But the truth is, the faster we run, the more lazy we become with our lexicon.

My personal vendetta is the smiley face – firstly, and stating the obvious, it’s not even a word! A symbol that for decades has represented amphetamines, rebranded from giving peace a chance in the the 60’s to raving in the 80’s, it seems to pop up on every email and sms, as annoyingly as those who put hearts and circles above their handwriting.

We don’t even need to fully converse to get engaged any more - a ‘poke’ and a ‘nudge' will trigger an LOL-abbreviated soliloquy. Call me old-fashioned, but emoticons cannot speak and should not be used to replace conversation, regardless of the media. A smiley face is not GR8 and it certainly does not make me smile never mind  LOL, and least of all LMAO.

Looking back, the signs were there for some time. I recall a visit last year to a top-end 5^th Avenue men’s store in New York, where I found myself  uncharacteristically speechless (pardon the pun), for even amidst designer-finery of an immaculately tailored Tom Ford look-a-like, he promptly informed me he would 'BRB' as he popped to the store room….words failed me, as they obviously did Mr Ford. I left…and I didn’t BRB L8R.

What would Confucius say if he were alive today? Or would he be too busy checking out his MP3 over a DVD on his HD LCD TV?

OMG, are we a mere nation of robots in the making? What’s next – counting in binary code? Or is lexorexia giving us all dyslexia?

‘Til next time (TTYL8R), Pandora