The Internet has changed the way we write. Gone are the days when a lot of meticulous effort was invested in every sentence that one wrote. Care was taken in the choice of words and even in punctuation marks. The finished product made the writer proud and brought cheers to the recipient . Not any more. E-mail and Chat have created another version of the English language. Grammatically correct sentences are no more a must. People have started writing in a style that is slight refinement of the good old telegraphic language. No one mistakes the writer to be any less educated for doing so. Nor is such writing considered to be impolite or discourteous. These are times when one is perennially short of time. So, e-mail reflects this change. It is OK as long as the message is conveyed. Clothing does not matter; bare bones will do. No need to pay attention to the spellings, no need to write a complete sentence, no need to watch out for mistakes in propositions or verbs or any thing at all. Besides, abbreviations are aplenty. When it is enough to say 'lol' to convey the impression that one enjoyed the sense of humour found in the person at the receiving end, why should we waste words? To complement, emoticons are always available. There is an icon to convey that one is confused; there are icons to convey that one is belly-laughing or weeping copiously or blushing or yawning. Words can be misleading; can pictures be? If in the process the fine art of writing is vanishing, there are not going to be many tears shed. Even if a few tears do get shed, why spend words to record them? There is an emoticon readily available , which shows a sad face. Place it and forget it !
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