Ain't Nothing "Kewl" About It

I've mentioned before, in a previous post on this blog, that I'm not a big fan of slang. The main reason for this (and I might as well confess this upfront) is that I'm not very good at slang. I have no idea why, but my head is just not tuned to the frequency of the street. Just the other day I found out the South African R50 note is called a "Pinky". It's clear enough why people would name the note Pinky (it's pink), but at the time I heard it, I was baffled. And the most embarrassing thing was, I heard this from a pastor, of all people!! But, besides that, there’s other reasons why I’m not a fan of slang, mostly because the majority of slang is stupid and people just play with words… for the sake of playing with words. I’ve actually noticed that most of it originates from bored people who really have nothing better to do with their time than to cull a language of it sincerity. My honest opinion, anyway.

Here’s another confession: I’m not a big fan of SMS shorthand either. However, not to the extent that I’m against slang. See, I can understand the need for SMS text, or at least it originally intended use. Long, long ago, before the inventions of MMS, Mxit, Whatsapp, BBM and the like, there was an ancient form of communication called “Short Message Service” (SMS). That “short” there is a vital word, because you could only fit 160 individual characters into each SMS, and there was a cost to sending an SMS, so if you were on a tight budget, you had to find a way to use as little real estate as possible while telling your ex-girlfriend how much you love her at 03:00 am on a Tuesday. Hence, we all found ways of shortening what we write, and hey presto! LOL was born, along with all her siblings and cousins, and we could text as much as we wanted. Well, that’s the main argument, really. Most people just used shorthand because they were lazy to type out whole words. Yeah, blame OBE for the current state of our education system if you want, I blame the Nokia 3310 and 1100.

So, to an extent, SMS text is justified. I also use it (to a very limited degree) from time to time. But there are instances when it ventures into the realm of sheer stupidity and utter pointlessness. Case in point, the word “kewl”. I hate this word, with a passion. If it existed in physical form I’d throw my wet, stinky undies at it after playing a game of soccer. In case you’ve never come across this monstrosity of a term, this degradation of all of human civilization, this worthless thing which dares to be referred to as a word… consider yourself lucky. I personally believe that this word is the one reason why mankind hasn’t colonized the moon just yet. It’s gained popularity in recent times as a replacement for the word “cool”. Stupid.

Remember how I said earlier that SMS text was used to save space typing on a cellphone? Well, this word achieves absolutely nothing in its quest to save space. Notice that it has 4 characters, exactly the same number of characters as the word that it’s supposed to replace. And it’s pronounced in exactly the same way!! The only difference is in the spelling, and in my view the new spelling is harder to grasp than the original. Kewl, urgh. It’s totally pointless in my eyes, and I have absolutely no respect whatsoever for people who use the term (ja, ngisho wena, ungaphiki nje ukuthi nawe uyalisebenzisa leli gama menemene ndini).

Imagine the implications of the continued use of the word. School would become “skewl”, fool would become “fewl”, tool would become “tewl”…. The extent of the possible corruption is endless! If we allow this trend to continue, our country will continue sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss of rampant foolhardiness until we wake up too late and we can’t reverse the rot. I am seriously considering escalating this matter to the national administration. The future of my children and my children’s children depends on it. Let’s tackle this matter first and once we’ve eliminated it completely, trust me, crime, unemployment and crumbling infrastructure will be child’s play to resolve. This right here is the Goliath we need to bring down before we can pursue the rest of the Amalekites. Let’s all make a pledge to aim a smooth stone right into the temple of the word “kewl”. This, my fellow humans, is for your future. Onezindlebe makezwe.

I rest,

Mzwandile