News Txting duzn't hurt grammar

Nice summary.

With regards to the article, text speak certainly does not help grammar or the English language. If, as monkey mentions, text speak is used as a tool for communcation then it certainly has its purposes. However, it is not an aid to English or an assist to formal writing in any sense. I completely disagree with the 'fact' that text speak aids young minds in understanding English; its a communication method but often disrupts correct use of grammer and words with similar vocal pronounciation.

For example look at the following: You are, Your, You're, UR, U R. There are two different meanings here but the problem comes when the meaning becomes lost to each and congested where this isn't the case. It is still possible to provide expression and in context, will make sense. Once, however, the true use of the word and punctuation is lost, there will be misunderstandings when using true English.

As someone else mentioned, look at the sample size. Not only that, statistics can be used to prove anything! Once you start using approximations (be they binomial or any other sort, small sample sizes can be used to imply or even prove strange matters, which then become matter-of-fact).

I guess there are over 20 million phone users in the UK alone, lets use a sample of 71 from one place and use this to cast an accurate vote.

Sorry for rant, just expressing my opinion.

 

Thats where predictive text comes in handy.

I wouldn't really call a survey of 71 people very accurate either, many hundreds, or a few thousand, from many different backgrounds/ages/etc. is more like it.

Like a few people, I use the odd abbreviation and acronym here and there but I usually try and use proper english, even when texting or chatting in a game.

 

The your and you're issue could potentially be helped by text speak if you think it through. For exmaple when writing i (and many others) are guilty of sometimes forgetting and going with your for both of them or some other combination of mistakes. However when using text speak (not that i currently own a mobile) i would always use "yr" for "your" and "UR" for "you are" and i know i wasn't the only one doing this so at some level i'd say UK kids do know the difference.

And what supermonkey said about language change was spot on, people have tried and failed so many times to preserve a perfect version of a language, what we speak today will sound as ridiculous as original Shakespeare in 200 years.

 

LOL, so true. And I can also think of a few more examples from the top of the my head, such as "addicting", rather than "addictive", LOL. It is a bit irritating as well, when you hear people [from over there] say things like that.

 

a full stop ? - who uses those on a forum

or i could have said
"People can still spell, and use grammar, just when it comes to saving a lot of time, people generally will save time"

but that doesn't sound right, so i didn't say it

 

Whilst it would be ludicrous to refute the notion that language evolves, I take issue with your idea that it 'makes sense that more and more people may adopt "text speak"'. I find this to be a particularly concerning phenomenon. I accept that you qualified this by saying 'as it helps them communicate better in a particular situation', and, again, I cannot disagree with this; it would be absurd to expect people to type out perfectly punctuated, spelt and grammaticised text messages - it simply takes too long! Nevertheless, we now have a problem with more people using "text speak" than continuous prose as they have no need for what they see as an outmoded means of communication.

The consequence of this mass exodus from proper English (whether American, British, Australian etc.) to "text speak" is that it sacrifices a lot of the ability to communicate with fluidity and precision for a convenience that, in many situations, is wholly inappropriate. Moreover, it also fosters an inclination in people to avoid having a wider vocabulary - which would enable them to communicate more effectively via continuous prose - with depressing consequences. Hence the rise of the 'f**king innit' generation. You now see people whose only words could be sent to someone using a mobile. *Breaks out the shotgun*

 

I don't blame texting for the general dumbness in the young; we've had a long spell of trendy educational theories that have put a pupil's ideas first, their communication skills (grammar, spelling, handwriting) of no importance. There's little exposure to correct English in newspapers and literature, the verbal diarrhoea of television has taken over. The internet provides mainly bad examples of the written word. The mobile phone is used to share banalities, verbal or text. Plus why use your brain when a machine can do it faster and doesn't make your head hurt?

It's been going on for so long most of the current teachers have had the same poor education - the cycle continues. There is no hope apart from genetic modification to produce a world of telepaths - communication without misunderstanding (though you may get your face slapped when ogling a fit bird.)

 

For what it's worth, I agree that the so-called "text speak" might lead to a decrease in advanced vocabulary. I, for one, would hate to see it happen. On the other hand, I'm ready to accept the fact that my children probably will not write the same English that I write today. I think it's fascinating to think ahead 200 years and wonder how language will have evolved. Will people look back at Harry Potter and wonder why it was written in such a difficult and funny language, the same way that children today look at Shakespeare?

-monkey

 

I think of proper grammar and spelling as a sort of lossless codec. Although text speak can shorten a message it can be misinterpreted, which can lead to... unpleasantness

 

Whats wrong with saying LOL in conversation?

/gets coat.

 

lawl. dude its all a teen thing. THe problem is a lot of teens are just plain stupid. Its funny and sad how terrible teens grammer is and even older people. I mean our society is crippled by our own illiteracy. I don't pose as the best gramatically correct person. I personnally feel that I have impecable grammer when I am not messing around. But thats just me. Let me go fish up something.

O w/e can't find it. It is the document that is totally misspelled but also totally legible.

 

I hate this constant short sentances.
I am not a good speller at the best of times and never have been. I don't mind the odd shortened words, like "u" ect. but when every word in a sentance has had an attempt at shortening it then it becomes unreadable. It takes much longer to understand than a normal sentance.
Sometimes people come in our IRC channel and they are obviously classic british teenagers. they say things like "is dis da englnd room, how is evry1, im doin ok fanks". Now that is just bad. Shortening words like You to u is, in my opinion ok because the letter "u" actually sounds just like the word "you", but words like "dis" and "den" make the person sound like a 2 year old just learning to speak. Unfortuantly this has come from american rap. It seems to be the mainstream music now and it really is messing up the language.

 

That mis-quoted cliche is one of my pet peeves.

Please! I live in "Straya." I'm not "Strine", I'm "Strayan." :b

Nezuji

 

One of my pet hates are writing in 'txt spk'! Again like a few others have said, I use a few txt style words when writing a txt or in a forum. I use u instead of you, and lol to show i think something is funny. It took a long time for me to understand what imo and imho meant, and there is another commonly used word on these forums that I havn't got a clue what it means (can't for the life of me remember what it is at the moment). I have no idea what stuff like pwn111111!!!!!33!?? means, or what all the numbers are meant to illustrate.

I have even recieved e-mails in work thats written in this utter s***, whats happened to a formal layout with addresses etc. when people write to others they don't know. (Dear Sr o mdm!!)

End of rant, sorry everyone.

 

I was mainly saying that English is spoken in England (by strict definition)
A CANADIAN study of English can't really be a study of ENGLISH but it can be of Canadian English.
Languages do evolve but that study like asking a Floridian to study changes in coloquial Glaswegian - it is fundamentally flawed. Not to mention that the 71 teenagers were probably voluteers so they a) wanted to do the study b) are likely to be academic as well so will skew the results.

It need s bigger study as I feel that the language is collapsing, not as bad as it seems when mobiles and txting came out but it is.

I'd study this by taking English exam results in schools and colleges and doing a survey of of mobile and IM usage. Do this for a number of years. Plot results.
You are more likely to get an accurate comparision from usage to english grammar skills that way.

 

Somthing which may be totally irrelevant occours to me, so I'll say it. I think there is somthing of a different dialect between email / chat grammer and text grammer. LOL and AFAIK and the like are mostly acronyms but still basically alphabetical and generally make at least a bit of sense. The text speech is often more alpha-numeric given the fact that you're basically typing into a number pad and doesn't make nearly as much sense (to me anyway). I mean, "l33t" not only is not intuative, but it's not even based on a real word.

I do find it interesting how the chat speech has crept into certain segments of the population as spoken words. What's even more bothersome is how little it bugs me when I hear it

EDIT: What scares me even more is that I'm starting to think in VB script when writing replies

 

in my opinion txting just makes people lazy, most people know the right thing (or atleast they should) and are just to lazy to use it. guess they think its to much effort to type out the proper thing with proper grammar

 

There's one of the words that I have no idea what it means, AFAIK????
Remembered another one, QFT. Can someone tell me what the f*&$ they mean.

Edit. Hang on I'll give it a go AFAIK = A*$ F$*^i*g A*$ IKea? was I correct?

 

I know what you mean dullien! I haven't got a clue what most of the crap my brother sends me in texts means. On msn, i just have to pretend i know what some of my mates are saying! I'm not even classed as "old" i'm only 20, i just never bothered to learn it.

I know:

brb
cya
lol
rolf
afk (thats only from wow and cs:s though and i am guessing its related to AFAIK)

Someone should make a defnitive list!

 

'AFAIK' is an acronym. It's a legitimate construct of the English language.

'Ltd.' is an abbreviation. This, too, is a legitimate construct of the English language.

'Wiv'/'Wit'/'Dem'/'Da'/Etc are all Yoof-speak/Leet-speak/etc... and are abominations. From my experience with my nieces & nephews, it *does* lead to a decline in standards - otherwsie-capable kids are now actually saying these things as routine.

We can't type as fluently, eloquently and quickly as we can speak, so it's understandable that some people seek to take short-cuts when typing (even if it is annoying and vulgar).

But is it any quicker to say 'Wiv' or 'Wit' than 'With'? Of course not! So speak fecking properly then! [slap]

Maybe I'm just getting old...