Restless Renegade

I never did like short forms of language. Mind you, I can clearly see why they keep coming about. I remember when sms functionality happened in my youth. The point was of course to save money, and naturally I immediately invested the same amount on a txt dictionary, the first of its kind. Few people then (and now) realised that the incompleteness, the terseness and the speed of the exchanges made for what is in fact an oral language in written form, if you see what I mean, hence the need for body language, i. e. emoticons - some of my learners who still read me will recall my enthusiasm in class. But acronyms! That's a different kettle of fish. A more subtle aroma, though I am pushing my metaphors. Here, we are peddling added value. You do not need examples, but it is easy to see how KPI-toting executives are not trying to be parsimonious in terms of breath usage. Rather, they are keeping that necessary step ahead, the millisecond it will take you to decode the spec which is really the gulf between the world made of easy ideas your kids, your old parents and a prosaic plethora of simpletons surrounding you force you to live with and the sleek clickable clipped sharpness of the man who knows exactly who he is.
The temptation cannot be resisted: you will sneer in disgust at the artificiality of it all only to champion it when your turn is due. And here it comes, the  BQ (big question): why should I care? Well, for one I just can't forget that language professionals are not only followers, but are called to be trendsetters in their field. Translators have always been, and they have historically more often than not become literary giants in their own right. Why not other practitioners?  Then there is the argument that the prosodic features really also entail stuff like sound and function, the ripe fruit of which is more than just a message getting across. How can you love a town or a country which is hypertextually atrophied, or a woman whose name your cannot taste in a rosary of syllables? Moving swiftly away from Latin spirit, here's my line: words are a bridge, not a cool accessory. Sure, even an edifice must have a style, but its peculiarity still cannot fall short of general appreciation, or we are back to the carbonari and their secret codes. Diversity is surely an asset, but fragmentation is a limit, and originality at all costs vulgar. A skilled craftsman may produce works of beauty using traditional tools and techniques - the newness is in the concept, the unit of meaning. An artist employing at once exclusively new implements, hitherto-unknown methods and unheard-of messages is to be viewed with suspicion. Never trust what is too recent only for novelty's sake, the Romans used to say, and their language may now be tricky to decode for some, but it retains its charm beyond meaning, like a middle-aged true lady who finds a half light more flattering now, yet  still evoking a dream of lust evolving from the shadows exactly through that subdued brightness. How did I get talking of things Latin again? Silly me, I got lost in another aimless promenade, in a...fruitless undertaking chasing...credibility. I was going to say kudos, but I will refrain. Just in case the above expression acquires some academic dignity and becomes cleft and re-assembled. This Frankenstein soundbite could not hope to live. XOXOXOXO