Wurdz

I would like to coin a word:  wurdz.

Wurdz is like what you say ungrammatically.  But if you say wurdz, you don’t know what “ungrammatically” means (and probably won't notice the subject-verb agreement errors in this post.)

Wurdz is what is exchanged in texts.  Not books, but phones.  Wurdz like “u” and “lol” and “omg.”  Wurdz says a little in a little space.  The ultimate use of wurdz is tweets.

Wurdz is peer slang understood by peers as real words.  Wurdz changes with age and location and technology.  Sometimes they crowd out real words.

By coining “wurdz,” I establish myself as prudish protector of language.  I used to cross out wurdz in my students’ compositions and replace them with words. 

With wurdz I can make the superficial look cool.  Wurdz can cover up my lack of vocabulary and deficiency of thought.

But wurdz is also universally understood.  Real words that communicate subtleties sometimes require dictionaries.  Real words can get you in trouble with the wurdz world—like the infamous use of “niggardly” that unfairly triggered racial slur charges.

Real words communicate a world of ideas.  They find their finest expression in poetry and the poetic turn of phrase.  Carefully crafted, they create epiphany in the reader.  Badly used, they cause an almost physical pain.

I favor words to wurdz.  As our world shrinks due to portable technology, let’s expand our creativity to spill over the unused space instead of confining communication to two-inch screens.