English is Dead: I Can Has Cheez Burger

Picture from source, I Can Has Cheez Burger

Playfulness with language can be fun. When done with cleverness and wit, it can even catch on. Joss Wheden (TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly) was a master of this kind of wordplay. Sometimes referred to as "Buffy-speak" or "Joss-speak," it changes nouns to verbs, plays with adverbs and adjectives, but not so much that it is unrecognizeable.

Examples: "Ms. Calendar is reasonably dollsome." "Someone else's loss is my chocolatey goodness!" "You're the Slayer and we're, like, the Slayerettes" "That's a guy big with the sinning." Basically real English with a tweak. There are countless other examples, and these aren't the best ones, but hopefully you get my point.

Then there's the bad language-twisting. Years ago, there was a rap song that was about the short-shorts that The Dukes of Hazzard character Daisy Duke wore. It was called "Dazzy Duks." You see, that's just bad. If you want to play with it, it should be something like "Day-Z Dooks." Dazzy Duks just looks like it rhymes with "jazzy pucks."

For years, many other things have contributed to the breakdown of the English language (besides education, I mean). Old MS-DOS eight character file names, vanity license plates, beepers--anyplace that had limited space to put your message. Then came email and instant messaging, where convenience and speed lead to sloppy writing. And then came texting, and gaming.

Now, language has devolved into l33t. This cliquey, almost impenetrable language is constantly evolving, changing, and is different from one clique to another. It basically involves replacing letters with numbers, and other creative combinations of characters to create new spellings for old words. It also creates new words out of common typos. The problem of course, is that not all word coinages are equally clever. And it looks like gibberish.

But you ain't see nothin' if you haven't seen the site I Can Has Cheez Burger, and its various spin-offs and imitators. They have a language known as "LOL Kitteh." Rather than try to explain it to you, I'll simply say that it is headache inducing, lamentable, and spells doom for English and possibly America itself. Take a look:

[Excerpt]

LOL-Kitteh as a Second Language (LKSL-101) in Five Easy Steps

Step one: Think of something to say. This is tricky for some people. “That’s a really cute cat. And look, he has a bow on his head!”

Step two: “Engrish” it. “That being the kitty very full of cuteness. And to be with looking! Him gots bowage on hims head!”

Step three: Misspell everything. “Dat beesing teh kiti vary ful ov kutenis. An to bees lukingz! Hims gotz bowwagez on hims hed!!”

Step four: Add exclamations and extra words. “OMG wau!! Dat beesing a kiti vary ful ov tewtul kutenis!! Bees wif da lukingz! Omg him gotz da bowwagez on himz hed lyk WTF?!?”

Step five: Add additional information. “OMG wau!! Dat beesings a kiti vary ful ov tewtul kutenis!! Bees wif da lukingz!! Omg him gotz da bowwagez on himz hed lyk WTF?!? OMG I tewtul wuntz to grabz dat kiti and fuzziez himz awl ovar … him sooooooo mooshy an fullz ov win!! Don werry lil kiti, I no eetz u! I luvz kitiz! I can has bunchiz ov dem! Mah kitiz luvz bowwagez too! YETH!! GIMME!! Kthxbai!”

Read more (if you can handle it) at: I Can Has Cheez Burger