Ryan the Twin

Ryan was Jason's twin brother. They were blond, athletic kids in the year behind me. I don't know if I ever actually spoke to them - I must have - but I know I was in class with them at some point. I was in a lot of combination classes: first/second, second/third (twice), and third/fourth. I've heard both that it was because we were bright and required less one-on-one attention from the teacher and also that it was because we were a little slow and hearing the same material from the previous year again (even if it wasn't directed at us) helped us to learn. I still don't know which it was. Either way, for most of elementary school, most of my friends were a year younger than me.

Devon and Chris were my best friends in second or third grade. I don't remember. Neither can I remember how or why we were friends; they were both a year younger, and I was a girl. It was weird, and we were accused constantly of "liking" each other.

Chris Keodi was the first person ever to call me on the phone just to chat. Before that, the telephone had been used exclusively for asking friends to come over. I can't imagine what we could have had to talk about.

One time, I discovered that Chris and Devon watched The Simpsons. I watched it too, but the general feeling at our small private school was that The Simpsons was a bad show and that we shouldn't watch it. We three had kept it secret because we were afraid of being reprimanded. I felt like we were comrades or conspirators. I hadn't realized until now what a rebel I was in elementary school.

The three of us liked to play Jurassic Park. Devon's mom had said that he wasn't allowed to play house, so we found alternatives. Chris would be Dr. Grant, and Devon and I would be Tim and Lex. Mostly, we just reenacted the electric fence scene. We'd grab hold of the chain-link fence and shake as if we were being electrocuted. It was fun. Then, we'd go and sit in the corner of the playground, spending the night in the trees where we were protected from the velociraptor.

One time in third grade, at lunch, I kissed Devon on the cheek. I don't know why, and I didn't think about it really. I just kissed him goodbye, and he started screaming. I don't know why I did it. I know I didn't like him like that. I felt like I was kissing my little brother. We were both mortified.

We never spoke of it.

The year after that, Amy came to our school. I could write a whole novel about her and me, and I probably will someday. We used to walk around the playground sharing my red, zip-up sweatshirt, singing the Siamese cat song from Lady and the Tramp. That sweatshirt got really stretched out. I wore it all the way into high school.

Amy was in Ryan and Jason's fourth grade class, and she told me that Jason was nice but that Ryan was the evil twin. I don't know if he really was meaner, but it supported the theory that we developed later, after meaning another twin set which included a twin named Ryan. He also happened to be the meaner twin. According to our theory, twins named Ryan were inherently evil.

Ryan the First

Ryan was a little, Asian boy with brown skin and black eyes. He was the one who cried on the first day of kindergarten when his parents tried to say goodbye. I watched from my desk, probably wearing the blank expression I wear in so many pictures of me from that time.

I wondered. Was I supposed to respond that way? My mom had said goodbye down on the small, kindergarten playground. Then, I had followed the little girl ahead of me up the stairs to our classroom. Both of Ryan's parents had followed the line up to the classroom too. Should I have felt abandoned?

I wondered. What kind of name was Ryan? Was it Ryan? It made me think of rain. There were so many new names. Heather. Megan. Michael. Alison. I knew the name Jessica from a character in my favorite book. I knew the name David because it was my oldest brother's name. There was even a boy named Christopher like my cousin. I didn't know people could have the same name as other people. My name, luckily wasn't shared by anyone one else.

It was written in block letters on a laminated label stuck to my desk. I already knew how to write it like that. Snake, triangle, an open B, another triangle, and the letter H. At home, I wrote my name on everything.
My teacher was the most beautiful woman in the world. Miss Cayott was tall and thin and had thick, wavy brown hair. She crouched next to Ryan's desk with her arm around his shoulders. Beside her, Ryan looked tiny. I thought Miss Cayott needed to be his mom because his real mom was just standing there with an unsure look on her face. Then, I was jealous that Miss Cayott was going to be his mom. I wished that I was crying too. Or that Ryan would just stop.


I went with my mom everyday when she dropped off David and Luke at school. She would let me play on the playground until it was time for me to go to preschool. I knew how it worked. We played. The teacher on the playground blew the whistle. Everyone froze. The teacher said a few things. I don't know what she said. I never paid attention. Sometimes, I didn't even freeze. I was four. Everyone knew I didn't go there.

Then, the teacher blew her whistle again. Everyone picked up their backpacks and lunch boxes from the pile by the drinking fountains. Then, everyone got into their lines. In a few moments, they all disappeared through the doors in the big white building. Parents never followed. I kept playing.

On the first day of kindergarten, I was annoyed that I had to play on the little playground. The slide was small and straight. The slide on the big playground was as tall as the school building and descended in a spiral. There weren't enough swings. The sand was different.

There was a little girl I knew from my church, Brittany, but she was in the other kindergarten class. She knew how the school worked too. Her mom taught sixth grade, and she had a big sister. Sometimes, she would come home with me at lunch time when all the kindergärtners either went home or stayed and took naps in the big kindergarten classroom. I always went home because my mom was a stay-at-home mom. Brittany's mom had to teach the sixth graders until three o'clock. We would take her back when my mom went to pick up David and Luke.

Sometimes when Brittany came home with me, we would play wedding. I would wear my brother's grey sport coat, and Brittany would wear a lacy doily on her head. She always got to be the bride because she was shorter. Besides, I had brothers, so I knew how to be a boy. Brittany only had a big sister. She and I would link arms and walk slowly, pausing after each step, down the hallway. Then, I would say, “Do you take this woman to be your waffle-y wedded wife? -- I do. Do you take this man to be your waffle-y wedded husband,” and she would say, “I do.” Then, my mom would give us cookies or Popsicles.


In Miss Cayott's class, I learned what kind of apple I liked best. We had an apple festival and made crafts with apples, and Miss Cayott cut the peels off of slices of apples. We tried each of them without knowing what color apple it was. I liked Gold Delicious. After that experiment, that was the only kind of apple I would eat. Before that, I thought apples were only red. That was what color they were in picture books and on Sesame Street. In coloring books, you were supposed to color apples red. After that, I colored all my apples yellow.

I felt rebellious. The sun was yellow. The sky was blue. Grass was green. Grapes were purple. Apples were red. That was what everyone said.


One time in Miss Cayott's class, I drew a picture of myself riding on the back of my kitten. The boy sitting next to me asked me if my kitten was underground. I frowned and said no. Then, he asked if we were flying. I frowned again and said no. I looked down at my picture. About halfway down the page, I had drawn a horizontal line with my house on it. A little below the line, I had drawn my kitten and myself, both much bigger than my house. I looked over at the picture the boy beside me had drawn. All of his people stood right on the bottom edge of his paper.

“We're on the side of a hill,” I told him.

Sometimes, I felt like the best drawer in the class.


At the beginning of kindergarten, my mom was pregnant, and in October, I got a baby brother. I think my dad picked me up from kindergarten that day, or maybe it was my grandma and grandpa. I told everyone that I wanted a little sister because I had two older brothers. If the baby was a girl, we would be tied. I wouldn't be the only girl. Really, the truth was that I liked being the only girl and hoped the baby would be a boy.

My grandpa used to tell everyone that I was his favorite granddaughter. If the baby had been a girl, he wouldn't have been able to say that anymore. My grandma and grandpa already had five grandsons, and I was the only girl. Philip made it six grandsons, and almost a year later, my cousin, Jesse made it seven. Now, there are eight. The eighth is named after my grandpa.


A little bit before kindergarten started, in August, my best friend Katie who lived down the street got a baby sister. According to Katie, it was awful. Baby Julia cried all the time. We could hear her from down the street.

I thought that Julia and my mom's baby could be best friends like Katie and me. When Philip was born and he was boy, I thought that he and Julia could get married. Then, Katie and I would be sisters.


In Miss Cayott's class, we did a play for the whole school. I had the lead role. I was a little deaf girl, and two other kids tried to invite me to church. I stared at them blankly. That was my specialty. Then, Miss Cayott explained to them what it meant to be deaf. Then, the whole class sang “Jesus Loves Me” with the hand motions. I didn't sing. I just did the hand motions.


I never played with Ryan at recess. I played with Heather and Megan and Alison and Brittany. Sometimes, we would play chase with Michael or David. Sometimes, some of the kids from the other kindergarten class, friends of Brittany's would play with us too, but I didn't know their names.

At some point, Ryan stopped going to our school.

How the Community Uses Language

You want to read my essay? Wow, how nice of you!

With the advent of the Internet and furthermore, of message boards and chat rooms, a enormously widespread language community began to develop. People from all over the world, of all different age groups were suddenly connected. Chat rooms, public journals, and group forums made up the breeding ground for a language showcasing the technological advances of the age as well as the ingenuity of the users of that technology. Much of the “internet language” is made up of shortened or combined words such as “newb” or “blog” and of acronyms which replace commonly used phrases such as “lol” (laugh out loud) or “brb” (be right back). Some of these terms develop simply for brevity, and some develop because there are inventions or innovations that need to be named. It is a development based on the wide-spread values of convenience, brevity, and universality that both coins new words and deteriorates the standards of written English as well as certain values that were formerly common.

Many of the acronyms used on the Internet develop because in on line, textual communication, it is difficult to communicate emotion. In traditional correspondence or spoken conversation, shortcuts are unnecessary because the window for expression is wider. One has the time to make a point clear. In instant messaging, as the title suggests, communication is nearly as quick as spoken conversation. It takes about the same amount of time to type “brb” as is would to speak the words “I'll be right back” on the telephone, but to type out the complete sentence would take far longer, especially for those poor souls who wander the Internet without ever learning to type properly. Regardless, it is a constant, back-and-forth dialog. However, in spoken conversation, our meaning is made clear through facial expression, body language, and vocal tone. Bare text leaves infinite opportunity for misinterpretation without those methods of expression.

The Internet community has compensated for those missing qualities with acronyms and pictorial facial expressions built from punctuation. Emoticons (emotion + icon) can clarify when someone is joking or sorry. There are emoticons for practically every emotion from flirtatious to embarrassed. Acronyms often serve the same purpose. “LOL” lets your correspondent know that you found their statement amusing (even if you did not “laugh out loud” literally). Also, acronyms somewhat make allowances for the lack of the time that was present in traditional, written correspondence. Where one might have written in a letter or an email, “I can't believe that you had the opportunity to meet Mick Jagger,” the instant-messenger correspondent might type, “OMG! u r so lucky!!!” Likewise, “WTF” or “What the f*ck” expresses astonishment or confusion, “IDK” or “I don't know” expresses uncertainty, and “KHUF” or “know how you feel” lets the recipient know that the sender sympathizes. Finally, the ever-useful “JK” guarantees that a statement made in jest will not be taken seriously.

As convenient as this may be, the developing “chat speak”, as many regional dialects do, deteriorates the original English. In common correspondence, capitalization and punctuation are no longer required or even expected. The same is true of postings in personal Internet journals (“blogs”) which are often published in a public forum accessible by virtually anyone with access to the Internet. Proper spelling and grammar have become endangered species in the wilds of the web. This is a major problem because for many young people, the majority of their writing and reading is done on the Internet. What they practice on line may become habit off line as well.

This consequence is not just hypothetical. It actually happens. While having his essay peer-edited in twelfth grade English class, one of my classmates was astounded to find that he had used the single letter “u” in place of the word “you” throughout his paper and replaced “in my opinion” with the acronym “IMO.” Obviously, when brought to his attention, he knew this was unacceptable, but in the haste of typing the first draft of his essay, he had resorted without knowing to the language he utilized with his keyboard for the majority of his time.

The way people communicate on the Internet not only effects the language itself but also the values that were once held. It is commonly accepted that it is a fact that the American culture is a fast-paced one. The rapidity of communication on the Internet is both a product of that sort of culture and possibly a factor in it. Because things may be accomplished at such speed, the standard is to have them completed that quickly. The value of leisure has been lessened. Also, the parental cliché, “Don't speak to strangers,” is often disregarded, although admittedly with some trepidation. Although people are still cautious about with whom they communicate, in chat rooms and message boards, they strike up conversations with people to whom they would never speak were they sitting near each other at Starbucks. Along the same lines, the value of respect or formality has been lessened. In a chat room, anyone may approach anyone with a simple “a/s/l” (age? sex? location?) to serve as an introduction. The fact that one asks these things indicates that the person to whom they are typing could be anyone and anywhere. He or she may be younger or older or near or far, but the casual “hiya” and “how r u?” are still acceptable. One may use the informal chat speak with anyone, except on message boards where it is forbidden or in emails to one's employer or grandmother.

One would not be hard pressed to find others who also oppose the spread of chat speak. As was mentioned, many message boards on the Internet enforce “no chat speak” policies. The reasons given often include the fact that it just makes the writer appear unintelligent or illiterate as well as the difficulty non-native English speakers (or readers/writers) face in deciphering the meaning. A quick Internet search for the term “chat speak” will turn up loads of bloggers (Internet columnists) predicting the downfall of civilization due solely to this Internet language. These restrictions and negative reactions may help to dilute the effects of this deteriorating language, but they cannot change the simple fact that in quick, textual communication, abbreviations, acronyms, and emoticons are the logical option. However, on a large scale, those who oppose chat speak protest simply by making all of their Internet dialog and postings grammatically correct. They will not correct others necessarily, but rather, they hope that their shining example will inspire others. On message boards where the no-chat-speak rule is not enforced, these individuals stand out. They appear to be complete sentences forming full paragraphs with proper punctuation sandwiched between one-liners built with symbols, lowercased i's and u's, and punctuation that is only used to make smiley faces. Unfortunately, no one else seems to catch on.

Nevertheless, while all these shortcuts take away from the original language, the Internet language community has also added to it. With such an innovative and rapidly growing entity as the Internet, it is no surprise that new words arise all of the time. These new words come into being because with so many new programs or capabilities available, it would cause great confusion and misunderstanding if there were not universal terms for these things. So many people use the Internet from all over the world that it just would not be possible to communicate if there was not terminology upon which they were widely agreed. Likewise, old words are given new meanings. For example, cookie, virus, and bookmark are all words that are very familiar in English but when used in context on the Internet, have meanings slightly different from the meaning one may be used to. A cookie is a small file that is downloaded to a computer automatically in order to run a web page more quickly; viruses are programs which infect computers and reek general havoc, and bookmarks are used to mark websites one wants to remember and revisit. Furthermore, old words are blended to become new such as blog, emoticon, and webcast.

Now, the entire world is caught up in a virtual community in which rules and convention in regards to communication are unimportant. New terms are born daily to keep up with constant technological advances, and users, the general populace invent new methods of expression through abbreviation and combination to compensate for the downfalls of rapid, textual communication. Through this process the values of brevity, convenience, and universality are upheld while former values of leisure and propriety and accepted standards are rapidly worn away.