Subscribe

Srsly addicted to tech

Our reliance on and obsession with technology is clearly reflected in the evolving English language.

Tarryn Giebelmann
By Tarryn Giebelmann, Sub-Editor
Johannesburg, 16 Oct 2013

The online Oxford Dictionary is updated every quarter with new words, new meanings, new senses and revised encyclopaedic entries.

As a linguist, I find these releases terribly exciting - in the geekiest way possible, of course. I know there'll be horrors ('twerk' immediately comes to mind); I know there'll be entries that leave me dumbfounded (does 'srsly', the abbreviated form of 'seriously', really deserve its own entry? Seriously?); but, most of all, I know I'll take pleasure in the majority of the additions, as they reflect our rapidly changing society and the ability of language to change with it.

As a wet-behind-the-ears student a few years ago, I carried the language-protection beacon, determined not to let English be soiled by the horrendous text speak that comes so easily to the fingers of teenagers with cellphones. It looked ugly, it sounded ugly; I called a spade a spade. But it's funny what education can do.

Humans have evolved because of their ability to communicate more efficiently than any other species. We dominate the animal kingdom because of our uncanny ability to adapt to our changing environments, and because we are able to communicate these newfound skills and abilities to fellow humans (okay, the opposable thumbs help, too). Language changes because we change; because we need it to change to serve our needs and interests; because we need it to change to continue to evolve and develop as a species.

Playing catch-up

Never has this been more evident than in the technology space. With each new release of additions to the online Oxford Dictionary, I notice more and more tech-related terms. Moore's law suggests that technological advancements double roughly every two years, and this has proved to be scarily accurate. With this comes the need for new terms to describe these advancements and new technologies. Language usage is certainly not changing as quickly as technology evolves, so we can't repurpose old words to suit new meanings.

I fondly remember the day my father brought home his first cellphone. The whole family rushed outside and gathered around the boot of his car as he unveiled this portable giant black brick of a phone. He still has his same number, but countless phones have come and gone since, and now he even juggles two phones.

Today, his very first Nokia would be grotesque; a thorn among the smartphone rose bush - and it wasn't all that long ago. And now, there's no turning back. Smartphones have become extensions of our limbs, and we're even talking about wearable tech, connected living rooms, smart electricity and transport grids, and solar-powered everything. Just when we think it couldn't possibly get any more Sci-Fi, we read about gadgets that scan the chemicals in our food, delivering the calorie count and chemical content straight to our cellphones, which are already processing the amount of steps we've taken and the calories we've burnt since we got out of bed.

Tech talk

In fact, it's gotten so extreme that the August edition of new dictionary entries included 'digital detox', defined as: "A period of time during which a person refrains from using electronic devices such as smartphones or computers, regarded as an opportunity to reduce stress or focus on social interaction in the physical world." Terms such as 'phablet', 'MOOC' [a course of study made available over the Internet, without charge, to a very large number of people], 'bitcoin', 'selfie', 'BYOD', 'Internet of Things' and 'hackerspace' also made the list.

Language changes because we change; because we need it to change to serve our needs and interests; because we need it to change to continue to evolve and develop as a species.

'Soft launch', 'HDMI', 'OLED', 'screencap', 'zero-day', 'cruft' (badly designed software), 'dumbphone' (the smartphone's awkward little brother), 'touchless', 'SSD' and 'FOSS' too made an appearance this year... and we still have two-and-a-half months to go. And that's not even touching on the social aspects of tech - 'tweetable', 'gossip mill', 'friend zone' and 'social sharing' are now perfectly acceptable terms in the English language. A scan through 2012 posts saw around 26 new tech-related terms added to our vocabularies, among them 'gamification', 'ethical hacker', 'e-learning' and '3D printing'.

You're speaking my language

When discussing the idea for this column with a colleague, she made a very good point: the fact that we are so engrossed in our devices, social media and this culture of sharing is possibly fuelling the spread, and use, of these new terms - both tech- and non-tech-related.

We probably have Miley Cyrus to thank for the common usage of 'twerk' today, even though it was in use way before she made the dance move, erm, cool, but a major driver is also the fact that pop culture is facilitated by technology. Ten years ago, before the proliferation of smartphones and social media, 'twerk' might not have caught on as well, simply because we didn't have the channels through which to communicate and 'spread the word'. Slang is no longer confined to small groups - in this overly connected world we live in, a fad just needs to catch the right wave and ride it to just about every country, or every smartphone, as it were.

I can now - begrudgingly - be on the same linguistic level as my eight-year-young brother. I get my own back by speaking in hashtags and overusing 'whatevs', just because I know it annoys him; just because social media has kept me informed of the new lingo; and, well, just because I can. Of course, this also means that, along with our privacy, being connected has also taken away our pockets of exclusivity - how on Earth will teenagers communicate in code when their parents are just as fluent?

One thing I take comfort in is that these language aberrations have only found a place online, for now. They haven't yet become standardised to the point that they'll be included in the official, hard copy version of the Oxford Dictionary. So there's still hope... hope that 'twerk' and 'srsly' will die a slow death; hope that they will not be replaced by words equally annoying. That said, I can't wait to find out what tech terms we'll be using in six months; new terms mean new technologies and new possibilities - is there anything better? Srsly?

Share