Wednesday Morning Ramblings

[windemere]

Right, so here's a thought for you this morning. Those of us who have been online for years, if not decades, who have a blog/twitter/FB/LinkedIn/etc account, tend to write in full grammatically sounds sentences when we post, correct? Do you also do so when text messaging on your phone, or is that the time you resort to 'text speak'? Do you type full sentences on messaging services? How about emails?

My problem is this. I use full sentences. Only when I text on my little Nokia phone do I resort to no capitals (because it's awkward to do) and shorten my sentences to the bare minimum. Occasionally I do it on a messanger service too. Never on email. Never on my blogs or other programs that require long entries. I ever try hard to avoid it on FB. I am not a teenager. I know how to spell. I feel no reason to resort to things like 'How R U?' when the real question is only four more characters.

So why is it that I keep running across adults, people who are at least a decade older than I, who cannot seem to type, write or post a full sentence if their lives depended on it? I feel strangely bookended between teens and older adults and worry what that means for our future. Are those of us in our 20s and 30s who type properly doomed to de-evolve when we hit 50? And are the teens today, who cannot seem to spell anything right, going to be the next generation of 20/30 year olds who still cannot type properly?

This worries me. And it's your Wednesday morning 'what is the world coming to' thought.

ION: I have cancelled my afternoon training session in the hope that I can get some honest to god work done today, instead of feeling like I'm wasting time. This would help my general state of 'I am never going to finish this paper' if so.

Comments

[shirebound]

and worry what that means for our future... So do I. Already some schools have ceased teaching cursive writing, and who knows what will be eased out next? Our language is still evolving, and it's possible that it will eventually become much more abbreviated than we ever imagined it could be.

I don't text, so I'll be doomed to speak and write in full sentences for the rest of my life.

[eldanna.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Maybe you are right though; I've certainly read a fair few articles that postulate that lately. However, I don't honestly believe it's a good thing. Language does change (we keep adding words to the dictionary, others go out of fashion), but grammar doesn't change so rapidly. It is still today almost identical to what it was a century ago (at least by the academic articles from the 1870s I've been reading lately).

[cliodna-bright.livejournal.com]

I never use text speak. The most I'll do is leave out function words or shorten my sentences some other way. I even try to use proper punctuation in my texts, haha! There's a girl on my Facebook who constantly writes incredibly stupid things like 'n e way' that make me want to slap her in the face with a dictionary.

[eldanna.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I'm not the only who who is driven mad by people who can't be bothered to spell things!

It was the Aunt that prompted that post, btw, because she sent me an FB message that read 'How R U?' *headdesk*

[zaftig46.livejournal.com]

My mom (in response to my email that I have a Big Name external examiner) emailed me "U R awesome" the other day... In fairness to her, I think she was emailing me back from her crackberry.

[eldanna.livejournal.com]

Oooh! I haven't heard, what Big name?

Ha! Normally I would let it go from the Aunt, except that I believe the reason she did it (from a computer) was because she is used to her crackberry instead and has just gotten thatlazy about the whole thing. Which is...sad.

[zaftig46.livejournal.com]

Ex-head of research at the V&A. My little heart, it fluttereth. It's all thanks to RS, actually, he pulled some strings. I just hope my thesis doesn't disappoint!

I don't really understand how one can get lazy with text speak - it actually takes me more effort to contract words!

[eldanna.livejournal.com]

I hear you!

Wow, that is fantastic news! Congrats on that. RS is so wonderful with things like that. We are so lucky to have him. I am sure your thesis will not disappoint. Don't think things like that. [Because if yours does, mine is going to be....see that sort of thinking never ends well!]

[grey-wonderer.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I *do* use How R U? Mostly, I use it in texts from my phone, or on Twitter, but I use it. I do btw, brb, lol, imo, and ion. Sometimes, I'm just lazy, and other times I blame my job.

Where I work, they have tons of these little short-cuts.
PTO: Paid time off.
UPTO: Unscheduled paid time off
POS: 'Point of service' or sometimes 'place of service.'
DOB: Date of birth
DOS: Date of service
RT: Right
LT: Left
IOR: No idea what the real meaning of the letters is but this refers to a time sheet with exact details of what you did during the hours you worked. It's not a time card, but something extra that my employers require.

There are hundreds more of these and after doing this sort of thing in company emails all day long, I lapse into it easily in my personal life.
Also, I tend to ramble in letters and emails and if I use the short-cuts, I'm less likely to go on and on for ages.(see length of this comment for an example) Finally, I have more than a few much younger friends, and in trying to understand some of their texts and posts, I picked up the slang myself.
I don't think you will suddenly start writing in this fashion unless you decide that you want to do so.

It really makes you think though. You spend your life learning to use the language properly and to communicate well and then suddenly everything has to be shortened.

I often worry about silly things like cursive writing. Who needs it now other than to sign your name? I wonder if ten or twenty years from now, I will be asked to write a letter in cursive so younger people can gaze at this dead art-form in amazement. It could happen.

[eldanna.livejournal.com]

See, but that makes sense, because it is likely your job influences you very much. And you are right, a lot of it is probably laziness for most people.

The cursive thing worries me. I love handwritten letters.