I can’t help but start this with a cliché- language is a very funny thing. Verbal or written, the tone matters more than the words. People do talk about the invention of technology but for a common man like me, it only adds to the misery. Communication has taken turns in a similarly different manner. Allow me to explain. When once there were letters written to one another, today it is mails, and a much faster version of the same has appeared, which the social networking sites and its users call chat.
I was not a big user of Facebook or Yahoo Messenger until recently when these sites impressed me by finding some of my old friends. Whether you want it or not, a window pops up every time you log in; it could be any of your friends, your best ones or the ones you secretly despise. And once you start chatting, it becomes a serious murder of the English language and a series of signs and symbols which would take longer time to convey its meaning and message than the old telegram. Language, however, is not the topic here, though I had initially thought I would write a piece about it. Tone is the issue at hand.
I believe I would not have had this fight with this good friend of mine had it not been for these sites and the mobile phone text messages. Understanding the tone of a person becomes extremely difficult and sometimes funny too. When I had once remarked on a friend’s hairdo, she replied, ‘Very funny (sarcastically)!’When I thought the exclamatory mark should have done it, I realized brackets conveyed the tone better, though I’d still like to believe it was more humorous than sarcastic. A simple line like ‘No thanks, I’m busy’ could make you look arrogant and you try to spend a lot of time explaining your tone. And a tone misunderstand hampers your relations with people; I have spoiled a few in these few years.
Ah, the older, simpler communication was better for me, or perhaps, I don’t fit in with the new complex means of communication. In any case if you meet people personally and you find them ignoring you, realise that you must have written something ‘offensive’ on chat.