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The decline of good English due to texting
I was idly Googling some stuff this week and came across an old article by Radio 4 presenter John Humphrys. It's one of his typically reactionary pieces, this one indignant at the loss of hyphens in some compound words, and even worse, abbreviations in texting:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-483511/I-h8-txt-msgs-How-texting-wrecking-language.html
As with his books Lost for Words and Beyond Words, I think the article mainly gives an insight into one man's pet peeves than anything else. Besides that, the analogy of texting to the exploits of Ghengis Khan is quite the most crass thing I've seen from him.
The upside of reading this kind of bluster is that you often find a critical and informative response, and this one from David Crystal is a delight:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jul/05/saturdayreviewsfeatres.guardianreview
It's made me realise that I should buy more of Crystal's books and thank my lucky stars that I only investigated Humphrys books.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-483511/I-h8-txt-msgs-How-texting-wrecking-language.html
As with his books Lost for Words and Beyond Words, I think the article mainly gives an insight into one man's pet peeves than anything else. Besides that, the analogy of texting to the exploits of Ghengis Khan is quite the most crass thing I've seen from him.
The upside of reading this kind of bluster is that you often find a critical and informative response, and this one from David Crystal is a delight:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jul/05/saturdayreviewsfeatres.guardianreview
It's made me realise that I should buy more of Crystal's books and thank my lucky stars that I only investigated Humphrys books.
Comments
I've never liked text speak, gamer speak, leet speak or whatever silly name people give it. Some specialists think it's fascinating to see a knew language spring up and develop, I can't help but think of it as more a language slowly dying.
In general context, text speak is no good in the professional world, for CVs, official paperwork etc. It has it's place and reasons for existing - typing in a hurry (playing games like Warcraft, mic broken and trying to raid with friends), or character limits on text messages (now Twitter also, though personally, I prefer the challenge of trying to NOT resort to text speak in 140 characters).
Some days I feel young, others old, but in my 30s I still shake my head at the state of the average person's grasp on English. People my own age, 5, 10 or 15 years younger and those that can spell what I'd consider simple to average words, or understand there/their/they're your/you're are in the minority
Hmm, after the adverb comments, I do sound a little crotchety here lately, I promise I'm not always this narrow minded and ranty sounding!
Texting abbreviations - I don't really mind them in text messages (although I use them very sparingly), but that comes with a proviso: I only use commonly known ones. I'm surprised that he says the meaning of tks is obvious. I hadn't have a clue what it meant until he translated it!
I don't understand the objection to emoticons. He should consider the fact that people reading your words can't see your facial expression or hear your tone of voice. If a friend has a ticket for a sold-out concert I might say to him "You bastard!". He can tell from facial expression and tone of voice that I don't mean the comment to be taken seriously. If it's in writing I need to follow up with
Finally, I think he is wrong to complain about the dictionary including the new forms - despite the phrase "dictionary definition", in my opinion the role of a dictionary is to describe language it, not define it.
What I think is bad about certain language change is how the meaning of some words change because of the ignorant rather than the lierate. The number of times I've seen people use the word "aloud" instead of "allowed" makes me wonder if in a few years dictionaries will reflect the change.
Ironically, the version of the OED that Humphrys loved so much was itself a result of language change.
Kids nowadays and their love of cubes with pyramids erected on each face. Back in my day we had 2D circles and we were happy to have that!!
Although saying that, I did have to explain the difference of "ta" and "tata" (in TTFN) to some confused Polish friends.
It meant 'lots of love' in those far-off letter-writing days.
Now it is used far too often.
Apparently it is used to mean 'laughs out loud' - and how often does one do that?
"shuffles off to the grumpy thread"
On Facebook there are many people who use LOL the same way I would use a full stop. It appears to be their standard way of ending a sentence. no matter how unfunny.
One of my relatives always ends her emails with LOL. I haven't the heart to tell her.