Rant: Texting IS ruining our ability to communicate
By Ben Robinson on Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 1:32 PM PST In Ideas and rants
I read with interest an article in The Inquirer, which said that author of a new report (plug: David Crystal – Txting: the gr8 db8) believes that Texting doesn’t impair spelling or literacy – oh no – it actually improves it!
When I say I read it with interest, it was more a case of disbelief! Has this person actually received text messages from the “Yoof” (pun intended) of today? The messages consist of a mish-mash of different symbols, and phonetic abominations – and those are just the polite ones!
Not so very long ago, when text messages could really only be 160 characters long, brevity in messages was required. Costs per message were also higher, and so there was a real drive to simplify the gist of what was being communicated. These days, we have reached the stage where pupils are allowed to write exam papers in “text speak”, fundamentally debasing what the older generations call the “English Language”.
Crystal suggests that what is really happening is that people are scared of technology, and the impact it could have on language – effectively allowing a new generation to gain control of their language. Well frankly yes, I am horrified at the idea of one day opening a well-respected dictionary, and finding that I can’t read it, let alone understand it!
What do IntoMobile readers make of this? Are people (like me) getting in a fluster for no reason, or is there a genuine dumbing-down of languages (not just English) going on……?
[Via: The Inquirer]
You’re just becoming your parent’s don’t worry about it. It happens to every generation. Remember, even Socrates thought the youth of the day were coming to no good.
They’ll still advance leaps and bounds ahead of us in the world we’re creating for them.
I gotta agree with mdk here — is it annoying to those of us who are over the age of 20? Sure, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a debasement of the language really. After all, if a person from the Victoria era heard one of us speaking, they’d be horrified at what we’ve done to the language.
Language evolves organically, through different generations and different mediums — there’s no stopping or controlling it, and really no need to.
-olly
over 20? ROTFLMAO! I thought it was only supposed to annoy the over 40s (me!).
Truth is, Socrates and everybody who agrees with him is wrong. Youth always strives to be different – yet somehow they always muddle through and ruthlessly depose their elders. Live with it. Soon we can retire in the Bahamas, sip margueritas and quit worrying about the rat race.
Funny there’re vocabularies with the texting/chat acronyms that have hundreds of them already and that resemble a real language
On a positive note though, the uber business folks have been using something similar for years now with all of these EOB’s, RFP’s, FYI’s, etc…
Im a teenage txter, and I think everyone is making a big fuss out of nothing. Yes I txt alot and often shorten words, but I also enjoy and take pleasure in making my txt messages interesting for the reciever. And as for it ruining my ability to write, well I recently got the highest mark possible at my school for my creative writing, and spelling and grammar played a huge part in this. I know I may speak for a minority, but we teenagers aren’t trying to destroy the english language, how is that even posssible. We are simply creating a new language of our own. Adults already control most of our lives, so give us a break, seeing as you arent 14 and are txting your mates, Im unsure how you have any idea of how or why we txt. Adults txt in a very different way to teenagers and as we grow up our txting style will evolve, I used to use dat instead of that a couple of years ago but now find that it is my younger sister who txts like that. You english language is safe.