As a writer, I often have a creative urge to put things into written form. As a scientist, I often see things from new and interesting perspectives which are difficult to bring up into a normal conversation. Naturally, the obvious solution was to combine my writing with my thoughts, but this is easier said then done. Studying English Literature at A-Level has neatly categorised texts into three piles; Prose, Play and Poetry, each with their own specifications and strengths but none of which suiting the needs of a good explanation. This enlightened me on a new, modern type of text: The Blog.
Technically speaking, the blog would be a sub-group of prose, standing tall against the genres of essays and novels. Even more technically speaking, a blog would be considered as a form, or evolution, of an essay: Indeed, a blog has all of the flexibility of an essay, and is certainly almost always non-fiction, but a blog is also adaptable in language and tone. This, for example, is an extremely formal tone, especially for a blog. If I had chosen to, I could have spoken colloquially, saying 'this is a canny posting thing', or, even worse, in my opinion, I could have begun 'itz alreet + brb lol'.
At this point I'd like to point out that I have no problem with the evolution of our written language. Shortening the way we write simple words has always been a part of our culture, from the adaptation of the word 'to-day' to simply 'today' to even more extreme examples. It is human nature to be lazy with things which we are forced to repeat, and our language is no exception.
The same feeling applies to creating new words such as 'brb' and 'lol', both of which I use frequently online, though would never say aloud. These were created for a purpose. In the example of 'lol', it was not only to save time but to allow the person on the other side to understand what the tone of the conversation was. In a world where everything is written quickly and to the point, it is very easy to misinterperate a written conversation. For this, plays and prose have stage directions of descriptions, but there are none of these on MSN, AOL or any other instant messenger, and the sentence 'I hate you' and 'I hate you lol' can be read as the same thing. When speaking or in other forms of writing, the difference is obvious, so a modern form of writing needs its own 'stage directions'.
What I am against, however, is the mutilation of the English language. I don't mean to sound like an out-of-touch middle-aged woman ranting, because that couldn't be further from the truth, but when someone starts talking to you with 'y's instead of 'i's, missing out every 'e' and generally replacing almost every letter with one or two which are different, you truly think 'what is the point?'. You may think that this is a time saving device at first glances - it does sometimes look slightly smaller then what it would have been if typed properly - but I assure you, it's not. This text-style of writing is a skilled art which you can't learn instantly; when typing, your fingers do not look for a 'y' when there is meant to be an 'i', and it takes just as long to actively think about not putting in that extra 'e' as it does to put it in. The writing does, admittedly, become easy and then eventually faster to type then standard English, but then all that time saved is completely ruined when all you recieve (after a few seconds) a simple 'huh?'.
It is this new language gap that makes the blog one of the most unique and interesting forms of writing. Because of this freedom of style, the blog can be enjoyed and written by almost every type of person; age, social class, education and even actual ability bare no restrictions towards to creator and reader. There are no restrictions of subject matter (assuming it is abiding by the terms and conditions of the webhost) and because there is such a large populatity over the new genre, writing becomes a inspirational challenge to get your voice heard. If you want to, that is, because there is a personal closeness to a blog which is close to reading someone's diary, sometimes.
Where else in the history of the world can you write a fully structured essay about the pros and cons of internets answer to literature, and have next to it the inner struggles of a 17-year-old girl coping with her latest heartache? No where.
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