Noms

I actually deliberated on the title of this blog. Should I capitalize the first letter, or not? This adorable 3-letter word refers to the "lolcat" speak on the website www.ICanHasCheezburger.com where adorable pictures of various animals (primarily cats and dogs) have captions depicting humorous conversations. I've actually fallen in love with the website and the animals depicted within. The term "nom" refers to food or anything of the like. It's a form of onomatopoeia in which the word mimics the sound made when something is nibbled or eaten...especially with haste when the food is extremely delectable. This term itself has gotten to the point where, especially on the internet, it's both onomatopoeia and a noun.

I smile with a cheesy grin just thinking about it. I picture friends of mine coming to my house, and as would be my hostly duty, I'd ask, "So I've got all kinds of good noms here if you're hungry." I find, personally, that the onomatopoeia form of the word is best expressed when the word "nom" is said 5 times in rapid succession: nom nom nom nom nom! It just makes me giggle!

But just this word alone has also prompted me to write this blog about my fascination with text lingo itself, when it comes to posting status updates on Facebook, Twitter, comments, text messages, etc. With the increasing and peaking popularity of the cyberworld and those who use it on a daily basis - I myself am a facebook and twitter addict - all kinds of textual lingo is being used on a regular basis, to the point where they even infiltrate daily social live conversations with friends. Our world is becoming increasingly digital, and those who were born after the year 2003 have little to no knowledge of what this world was like before this world went from being the kind where you'd have to communicate by phone to being able to take a picture with one!

So let me briefly recap my thoughts, because I seem to go from one stream of thinking to another. This one word, "nom", and its references is tied to a world that has evolved into what it is now when only a few years ago it didn't exist, at least not to the level it's at now. This world branches out in so many directions with the way technology has changed over time.

This world has brought with it changes in the way we communicate with each other, with regard to news, comedy, research, art, investigation, authentic information, misguided information, business, politics, pro-this and anti-that.

So here I was, trying to write a blog about a simple little word that evokes so much humor, and it led me down to mention, albeit briefly, the world that technology has affected communication, and how that has affected humanity.

We've come a long way, baby.