Us Dumb

Apparently, there’s a new theatrical release entitled “How She Move.” Before I saw the poster, I had guessed that it was a movie about dancing. But I could have been wrong. It could have been an inspirational Oscar vehicle that centered around an autistic girl (Dakota Fanning) and her adoration for her single mother (Reese Witherspoon), an international chess grandmaster.

Honestly, I don’t care what it’s about. The larger point is that we are slowly becoming a retarded society. We have the most money on the planet. All races and genders should have access to at least the most fundamental of English grammar lessons. The rule on rules has always been: You can’t break the rule until you know how to use it. I’d argue that none of us know how to read and write anymore, so we have no business calling a movie “How She Move.”

But I’m not surprised. This was brought to you by the same generation that’s learned how to compose thoughts in the realm of text messaging. There was a tween girl I overheard on the street the other day who was gossiping with her friend, and she said, “BTW, he totally has a crush on you.” But she didn’t say the words “by the way,” she sounded out the letters “Bee-Tee-Dubbowyou.”

Now, the idea of internet shorthand is to save keystrokes, I guess. But when you’re actually speaking with someone, it’s fairly counter-productive to verbalize every syllable of a letter, especially if the syllables outnumber the words. Sort of defeats the purpose of shorthand.

No wonder old people don’t know what the hell we’re talking about. They’re forced to use gadgets they never needed, read writing that’s a font size of 3 pt. on a tiny screen, and try to decode what a sentence like “ROTFLMAO!!” means. Poor old people. Do we have to confuse them so much right before they die?

I’m not sure who the cool kids were who decided that we didn’t need any standards of grammar anymore. We’ve moved way beyond convenience and speed. We’re now making up chat and text shorthand solely to confuse our parents and seem cool. Frankly, it’s embarrassing. Act like ya been there before. I can only hope that in a couple decades we’ll be looking at how we used to write to each other and be really embarrassed, like looking at a pair of bellbottoms.

Otherwise, we’re headed to Ray Bradbury “A Sound of Thunder” territory. You know, the time travel short story where the hunters go back in time to shoot dinosaurs, but screw up the entire course of human history by stepping on a butterfly? When they get back, the sign above the time travel hunting company reads: “tyme sefari inc. sefaris tu any yeer en the past. yu naim the animall. wee taek you thair. yu shoot itt.”

Seriously, at a first quick glance, does that nonsense look any more legible than the stuff you see in instant messages? Sometimes formality is a good thing. It keeps us in check, so we don’t all become a bunch of morons.

I blame Boyz II Men, they started this.