WAG - Can you speak Martian?
I know people who have learned how to speak and write in the Middle Earth Elfish language. I know people who know a spattering of Klingon. This weekend I even read about a person who took Harry Potter, a book filled with many terms new to us “muggles, ” and converted it into ancient Greek.
I thought I’d gotten my fill of quirky language related stories until catching this article which outlines the newest lingo that’s been created to help NASA scientists working with the Mars lander twins.
Quick quiz: What does “MER-A ratted Adirondack yestersol while solar groovy, even though it was high tau in Gusev.” mean in English?
Time up! Pencils down. Pass your papers forward.
Translated, it reads:
Spirit, the first Mars exploration rover, used its rock abrasion tool to grind into a rock nicknamed for an Eastern mountain range one Mars day ago while receiving adequate power from its solar panels, even though there was a large amount of dust suspended in the Martian atmosphere above its landing site, named after a 19th century Russian astronomer.
I am ticked by the fact that all the shorthand, jargon, and nested acronyms (where the individual letters of an acronym often referred not to full words but to further acronyms) are developing into its own unique language.
NASA has reportedly been doing it for years, but current users of online Instant Messengering systems, should find it no surprise that shorthand comments are becoming the standard.
Is this grossly oversimplifying language, or is this simply a new twist in the development of language. Will grammar, spelling, and structure be steadily reduced and limited over time, as humorously suggested by Mark Twain? Could our vocabulary be systematically whittled down to make the general populace easier to control as suggested by George Orwell (in his book, "1984," which I’m sure many Illuminati Grand Viziers curse for letting the “big brother concept” out the bag a bit too early for their liking)?
IMHO = %-) Translation:(In My humble opinion, this makes me brain dead)
BYKT (But you know that)
HTH (Hope that helps)
GTG (Got to go)
CUL8R (See you later)
Translation provided by Computer World.
'TTFT_Ta_ta_for_now'
