NHS scandal: Part II
Kenneth Roy
The Twitterophiles who have persuaded me that it is impossible to function in this century without being a cell in the global entity may find themselves coming to regret it. The benefits of Twitter to those who wish to share their every waking moment with the rest of the world are blindingly obvious. (Although it may be a little naive to assume that the rest of the world gives a toss.) They can do so, within wifi range, anywhere, any time, any place. Yes, even there.
I am prepared to bet that as I write this, and as you read it, people are sat on toilets around the world with both thumbs firing away and their garments around their ankles.
Actually there is nothing new in such a form of time management. The great Henry Longhurst of the Sunday Times, doyen of all golf writers, always insisted that his weekly column appeared in the lower right hand quarter of the back page, so that it could be folded into a manageable size for the comfort, the convenience even, of lavatorially sedentary readers. Its word count was also designed with that circumstance in mind. Possibly Henry would have taken to the new area, but I suspect that he would not. Instead I can picture him looking down from the great golf club bar in the sky on Rory, and Poults, and Ben, and Bubba, reflecting that he is rather glad to have been and gone before their time.
Yes, we are all tweeters now it seems; even @QuintinJardine. Yet as a writer, in joining the ranks in their billions, am I not guilty of betraying the language in which I communicate? For in a world where individuals’ birth-names are being replaced already in common usage by their Twitter handles, how long can it be before the rest of our vocabulary is distorted beyond recovery, before words of more than two syllables fall out of use and eventually out of memory? It is said that Twitter offers a form of freedom. But sure as hell, it is not said that it offers a form of liberation, for that word is far too long to use when one is restricted to 140 characters, spaces included.
What is the future for the multi-syllabic? Are we a dying breed? Are we all doomed to use footballer-speak, to a life of trying to understand the generally incomprehensible musings of @rioferdy5? It may be so, but I for one will fight against it, even as I tweet (but never on the bog, I promise).
Quintin Jardine is a Scottish crime novelist, a ‘crusty but urbane Scot, in his prime, and done with disclosing his age’.
