I’ve listened so many times to the chatter of little children, mostly my own. They flitter and twitter, mostly talking gibberish, and yet I listen intently. It’s been said we learn so much from them and yet it seems that all I’ve learned is a new language.
Some of the new terminology is interesting and yet mostly useless unless you are not technology-impaired and are talking to someone who understands the lingo. Six kids later, I understand the lingo…just a bit.
I won’t waste time here dwelling on the LOL’s and OMG’s, or even the WTF’s. Many of you know them, and the few that don’t, I envy you. With email and text messaging and instant messaging and whatever else, I find it a continuing struggle to maintain a certain element of the literary use of the language in my house.
To that end I often quote Shakespeare or Hawthorne. I even find some parallels in modern movies.
This article appears in Sep 2-8, 2009.