gOoD eNgLiSh? WTF is that?

I didn바카라�t know, at 12 and 13, that living languages exist in a permanent state of such downfallings, constantly welcoming new additions as new shared experiences call for new shared vocabularies. So when the world faced a shared need to condense IRL non-verbal cues바카라�tone, expression, body language바카라�into the 160 characters after which an SMS would split into another, costing an extra rupee, the compression of 바카라�I바카라�m laughing out loud바카라� to 바카라�LOL바카라� was really undeniably sensible.

That tone-work has now expanded into its own dialect. 바카라�LOOOL바카라� is warm but 바카라�lol바카라� is cutting; 바카라�hahahaha바카라� is 바카라�that바카라�s funny바카라� but 바카라�haha바카라� is 바카라�stop talking to me바카라�; 바카라�Ok바카라� is either professional or rude, but 바카라�k.바카라� is unfiltered fury (the way to actually say 바카라�ok바카라� is 바카라�kk바카라�). And I would need a whole other essay to get into the universe of emojis-as-tonal-slang *upside-down-smiley*. Maybe, like all languages, these can only be mastered by immersion.

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I should say바카라�it바카라�s possible all of that is completely untrue for anybody who isn바카라�t specifically me, specifically now. Our tonal cues, like our expressions, are personal and ever-evolving. A few years ago, my colleagues staged a Slack-room intervention demanding that I stop passive-aggressively saying 바카라�Oki바카라� to signal annoyance. I shocked them back with the admission that 바카라�Oki바카라� was, to me, affectionate. At some point, without noticing, I stopped using it at all.

My present day WhatsApps would appall that chat-snob preteen. I hyper-use all the universal acronyms바카라�wtf, idk, omfg바카라�but some friends and I also break out homemade inventions. 바카라�Idkwtty바카라� is 바카라�I don바카라�t know what to tell you바카라�, 바카라�bmj바카라� is 바카라�bhaad mein jao바카라� (not to be confused with BMKJ which is, universally, 바카라�Bharat Mata Ki Jai바카라�), and 바카라�bwtym바카라� is 바카라�best wishes to your mom.바카라� (Sorry.) The need these very questionable innovations rise to meet isn바카라�t brevity, but the need to signal intimacy using a private vocabulary when one crucial intimacy-building arena is a WhatsApp group-chat. Character limits weren바카라�t the last challenge the internet presented to neologists.

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As apps drove a rise in tech-based casual dating, we learned 바카라�ghosting바카라� and 바카라�sext.바카라� As writers began logging everyday thoughts, along came the coinage 바카라�web-log바카라�, which was then duly shortened to 바카라�blog바카라�. By the 2010s, when YouTubers were self-documenting their lives, a smooth trail had been trod to 바카라�vlogger.바카라� In 2018, 바카라�binge-watch바카라� found a spot in the Oxford English Dictionary and by 2019, when authoritarian leaders around the world had made a habit of weaponising viral misinformation, 바카라�fake news바카라� made its way in too. This is not the story of a language falling down, this is its construction바카라�words are tools we craft as we need them. This year, Merriam-Webster added 바카라�physically distance.바카라�

According to the Twitter bot @NYT_first_said, which tweets words that the New York Times has used for the first time, 바카라�katli바카라� and 바카라�pyaaza바카라� made their NYT debuts in November 2020. We know that neither 바카라�katli바카라� nor 바카라�pyaaza바카라� are new words, but their canonisation in the Times tells us that South Asian people, and therefore foods, are making their way onto American cultural centrestage. The language of any space is set by its empowered citizens. And in that sense, the more rapidly the language of the internet evolves, the better we바카라�re doing at building an inclusive internet.

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Already, the population of social media has expanded faster than any other shared public space in human history, with fewer of the barriers and threats of violence that separate sub-cultures IRL. So the power to add new words to English lexicons, once guarded by the upper classes of Western academia and literature, is now decentralised, held by any English speaker with a social media account and some creativity. This has opened dictionary doors to all sorts of subversions.

Like: despite African Americans and queer folk being two of the world바카라�s most historically oppressed populations, every Westernised teen in the world now speaks their slang. 바카라�Yaaass바카라� (an expression of support) and 바카라�fire바카라� (attractive) and 바카라�tea바카라� (gossip) were all inventions of Black drag communities, and the new use of 바카라�cancelling바카라� to mean culturally boycotting a non-progressive person or entity rose first among Black Twitter users. The global adoption of these words speaks to an ongoing American cultural imperialism among English-speakers everywhere바카라�but at least it isn바카라�t purely Cis-Male White American imperialism? Either way, to say 바카라�tea is cancelled바카라� to a TikTok-savvy teen would not at all convey that a tea-party has been called off, but that the concept of gossiping is no longer considered progressive ¯\_(ツ)_/¯바카라�

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But the impossibility of elitist linguistic gatekeeping onl­ine was a lesson Indian compradors of colonialism were slow to learn. Through the 2000s and early 2010s, when soc­ial media access was restricted to urban, English-speaking, Brahmin upper classes, nothing was considered funnier than pointing at the grammatical lapses and spelling errors of the less English-fluent.

Slews of viral lists, including some I myself wrote, collated errors on signage. 바카라�SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE PROSTITUTED바카라� was peak humour and I had the page-views to prove it. Other major memes of the era found their virality in English gone wrong. Consider 바카라�Will you do franship with me?바카라�바카라�shorthand for the widespread mockery of non-native English speakers바카라� Facebook messages to strangers. Or 바카라�How can she slap?바카라�바카라�the line that a gameshow contestant, when he바카라�d been slapped by the host, shouted in his defence for slapping her back (lots to unpack there, yes). Or 바카라�Hot a What Bhaabhabhiat바카라�, which blew up when a Savita Bhabhi comic showed a bra salesman arriving at Savita Bhabhi바카라�s door and, instead of saying 바카라�Wow! What a hot bhabhi!바카라� said바카라� 바카라�Hot a What Bhaabhabhiat.바카라�

(When I sent that comic to a teen cousin in Delhi, she rep­lied 바카라�SKSKSKSK바카라� which I had to look up the origins of. Dictionary.com explains: the Portuguese-speaking internet, as far back as 2009, was using 바카라�sksksk바카라� as keysmash바카라�i.e. when something is so emotionally overwhelming that the only way to respond to it is to smash your keyboard. The English-speaking internet, which has typically keysmashed with some version of 바카라�asdhjfdks바카라�, seems to now have adopted the Brazilian 바카라�sksksk.바카라� Another article defined 바카라�sksksk바카라� as Gen-Z for 바카라�I can바카라�t even,바카라� which is now-retired Millennial-speak for 바카라�I can바카라�t even begin to describe how I feel바카라�, a sentence that I바카라�m sure used to be uttered in full in some ancient, lost world of Jurassic innocence.)

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Thankfully, elites weren바카라�t allowed to dominate Indian int­ernet English speech norms for long. Our cyber penetration rose from 7.5 per cent in 2010 to 50 per cent in 2020, and with growing diversity in India바카라�s online voices and the global spread of social justice discourse came calls for inclusivity. The previously uncontested power of privileged folks to set the terms of discourse began, finally, encountering voices of contestation, and jokes or smug punchlines that relied on pointing out 바카라�bad English바카라� made the transition from Cool to Problematic. Several of us who바카라�d done it earlier swallowed our guilt and changed our ways. By 2017, when the 바카라�exasperating farrago바카라� that is Shashi Tharoor바카라�s vocabulary achieved Meme Status, the punchline wasn바카라�t someone바카라�s English being poor, but that it was too rich.

If you miss the genre though, don바카라�t stress: the classism torch lives on globally as racism, burning bright on the Reddit forum r/IndianPeopleFacebook and in the meme 바카라�bobs and vagene바카라�바카라�a misspelling of 바카라�boobs and vagina,바카라� of course바카라�which mocks Indian men바카라�s brazen online creepiness in demanding pictures of 바카라�bobs바카라� from women they don바카라�t know, but does so using linguistic discrimination, which makes it somehow both progressive and problematic. Idkwtty.

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In the last five years, as anti-caste activists have found growing audiences online, the contest to elite English has included a widened push to de-caste how we speak. In a 2018 video called 바카라�Casteist Slurs You Need To Know,바카라� Muslim-OBC writer Divya Kandukuri listed casteist slang used around India and called for viewers to stop using it바카라�words including 바카라�bhangi바카라�, 바카라�kameena바카라� and 바카라�ghaati바카라�, and the dictionary-approved 바카라�pariah바카라�. In 2018, Dalit writer Yogesh Maitreya published an essay on BuzzFeed titled, 바카라�My English Isn바카라�t Broken; Your English is Brahmin,바카라� in which he described his experience in an English literature Masters programme. 바카라�I was on many occasions told that I made grammatical errors in what I said, that my pronunciations were incorrect,바카라� he wrote. 바카라�This anxiety to 바카라�correct바카라� me and many Dalits like me when it comes to English was nothing but an exercise to use the position of domination.바카라� And for years, in articles, tweets and YouTube interviews, Dalit thinkers have made calls for retiring the widely used 바카라�upper caste바카라� and 바카라�lower caste바카라� and replacing them with the more historically accurate, less inherently hierarchical 바카라�oppressor caste바카라� and 바카라�oppressed caste바카라�.

Such calls for India to speak a less casteist English aren바카라�t new. Proponents for any type of equality have a long tradition of interrogating speech norms. If collective language is a mirror to collective experience, the question activists ask is: well, whose experience is allowed to represent the collective? The internet has merely accelerated the ability of this questioning to reach oppressor groups.

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And when words for everyday oppressions don바카라�t already exist, the internet allows for collective coinage. The English I바카라�ve known has always had place for 바카라�hysterical바카라�, built on the Latin word for uterus: 바카라�hystericus바카라�. But in 2018, dictionaries also made room for 바카라�mansplaining바카라�, which women in online forums had been using since 2008 to describe the very common experience, both online and off, of men condescendingly exp­laining to us concepts that we already understand. In a 2017 essay called How Caste Gets Clickbaited, Dalit writer Shivani Channan debuted the term 바카라�Manusplaining바카라�바카라�바카라�when a savarna justifies and denies바카라� the opp­ressive values of the Manusmriti.

Sadly, the linguistic innovations of equality activism online are met with similarly innovative resistance. Anybody who바카라�s critiqued Hindutva, the RSS or the BJP on Twitter is fam­iliar with 바카라�liberandu바카라�바카라�a tragically sticky portmanteau of 바카라�liberal바카라� and 바카라�gandu바카라�. Or consider 바카라�feminazi바카라�바카라�a feminist who바카라�s apparently so stringent about calling out daily sexism that she바카라�s equatable to a Nazi. Or 바카라�slacktivist바카라� and 바카라�keyboard warrior바카라�바카라�accusations that someone is outspokenly progressive online but doesn바카라�t engage in real-world change-making. The most heartbreaking linguistic victory of the socially conservative is that the really lovely word 바카라�snowflake바카라� which earlier only meant바카라�well, a snowflake바카라�has now been used so often to der­ide people who call out everyday injustices that, in 2018, the OED expanded its definition to include an alternate meaning: 바카라�an overly sensitive or easily offended person (informal, derogatory).바카라�

In a sense, I get it. Folks flinging around 바카라�snowflake바카라� and 바카라�feminazi바카라� aren바카라�t all that different from an upper-­class, oppressor-caste, wholly Westernised 12-year-old in Chennai, ranting on MSN that 바카라�GTG바카라� was sacrilege of Proper English. Watching the world change can be a disorienting thing, more so when one has inherited mastery over the old world바카라�s old rules. But if my LOL-worthy journey from 바카라�LOL is the downfall of the Queen바카라�s English!!!바카라� to (well) 바카라�LOL-worthy바카라� teaches us anything, it바카라�s that gatekeepers can flail and resist all they like. The world, tossing a 바카라�bmj바카라� in their general direction, goes ahead and changes anyway. BMKJ.

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Rega Jha is a writer-columnist, did her time on the digital media frontline as the founding editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed India.