Sep 11, 2023 3 min read

I have long been of the opinion that the English language is on life support. Lately, though, it appears that someone has pulled the plug on the old girl, or at least tripped over it without noticing. As proof, I offer the word “ima.”

I can’t recall when I first became aware of this particular affront to our mother tongue. But most recently I saw it in a Facebook post, used as a contraction of sorts, smashing together “I am going to” into a new “word” that apparently has been around for some time. It may come from the abbreviations used in texting and email, such as IMHO (in my humble opinion) or FWIW (for what it’s worth). Although I have used this type of shorthand occasionally, I try to avoid it. If a point is worth making, isn’t it also worth the effort to type a string of words to do so? Plus, I am of a generation that actually used to write letters to each other. On paper. In longhand. With pen and ink. I can’t recall the last time I wrote a letter, but something about inventing contractions that don’t need to be used just grates on me.

Mark Twain famously said, “Don’t use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.” Well, “ima,” is a one-cent word. And even if you saved up 50 of them, they still wouldn’t do.

Sure, I use bastardizations of English in speech – things like “gonna” in place of “going to.” But an editor once told me, “Don’t write like you speak.” To me, using something like “ima” implies that you slept through English classes. A large part of me thinks it indicates that English is being taught haphazardly in elementary and secondary schools. But I’ve thought that for around 20 years.

My son graduated from high school in 2007. He was not a child given to verbal exposition, and he absolutely would not write more than one paragraph in homework assignments unless I forced him to do so. I soon realized that I seldom, if ever, saw corrections of spelling, punctuation or grammar on the completed English assignments he brought home. Because of this, I came to think that his English teachers were simply glad that he had written anything. And, possibly, that they avoided correcting him because they feared it would lower his self-esteem. Communication through social media, texting and email has made things even worse.

I suppose many will say I’m overreacting, that I’m being a prig – if they even know what that word means. But I pride myself in being literate and capable of writing and speaking using only a modicum or regionalisms and slang, and then only for effect.

“Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged,” contains almost half a million words. Its editors add more annually in an effort to stay abreast of technological terms, jargon and other usages that have wedged themselves into our everyday speech and writing.

But if they start adding terms that require you to buy a few vowels from Vanna in order to figure out what they mean, ima lose my mind.