DailyPost 316
FORMATTING
Once we able to write a sentence in the early years of our schooling, the concept of formatting makes way into our language psyche. English teachers, as ordained since times immemorial, take pains to align us to the accepted norms & systems of writing. Books like Wren & Martin have contributed their bit in developing our formatted language skills, it became a part of our DNA. Language distinct from the format prescribed by convention for that genre of writing never ever hits us even in our dreams.
From a sentence to a passage to a book, we know the look & feel of each of these. We are taught to write essays, letters, reports and the like as time passes by in our schooling, college and professional career. We are supposed to have perfected to this art by the time we are out of college, ready with written language skills with formatting, wherever we start our professional career.
Try testing this skill with the Gennext and you will realise that we are not on the page. Writing skills accentuated by lack of formatting is adding insult to injury. The first onslaught came from
onset of the SMS age, throwing format & formatting to the winds. It was the beginning of a new bold age. As if that was not enough, came the tsunami of the social media which seems to wiping out formatting on a permanent basis. The SMS gave birth to abbreviated English language. The social media unformatted the language.
With most of the time spent on social media this unformatted language is trying to gain entry into all walks of life. A narrative has to have a format to make meaning to audience. The present generation is fine with it. Might be its an evolution of the language to a different level. With plagiarism growing simultaneously & ppts becoming a tool for education predominantly, the language landscape is bound to metamorphose. What will emanate out of this churning we just have to wait & watch.
FORMATTED LANGUAGE HAS LOST ITS SANCTITY.
Sanjay Sahay