The even scarier fact is that I've received essays from college freshman that include 'u', 'becuz', and similar!
I hate to be contrary, but either you have received essays from one individual named college freshman (hence your omission of the article "a"), or you have received essays from several college freshmen. Naturally your error is the small kind that could easily be caused by a mere typo, but I cannot help but point out the humour in failed object number-agreement appearing in a post about linguistic standards. :mrgreen:
Seriously though, I think that the evolution of the PC interface has led to a lower emphasis on developing typing skills among schoolchildren; the most exciting computing experiences are entirely mouse-based. I type in a manner similar to how I would speak because I was told to use Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing software as a child. Now my top speed is pushing 80 WPM. I could never imagine wanting to type "b4" because typing "before" takes me no longer... but I suspect that, sadly, the same cannot be said for the many hopeless touch-typists in my generation (I'm 23).
I have noticed, however, that I get a kind of "un-cool" feeling when using whole words and sentences to send instant messages to friends (especially those who typ lik dis ok? brb ttyl l8r). I end up feeling like John Hodgman on the "Hi, I'm a Mac / and I'm a PC" commercials; soon, I get absorbed into the teen chat shorthand language. Whether or not you think language should be descriptive, it seems inevitable that new media will beg for corresponding genres - IM being a good example thereof. Perhaps the future challenge will not be to integrate IM language into traditional correspondence, but rather to teach complex and differing sets of parlance for each medium as appropriate.
I, too, have a teen aged daughter who is very much into IM'ing and knows/uses all the IM shorthand. I told her that if I ever see any of them used in school work that her PC would be returned when she enters college. The only good thing IM has done is make her a very good and fast typist.
It is a serious threat to written English as a means of communication.
The rules of spelling and punctuation are not decoration, they are there for a reason.
While it's growing, the problem is not new: many people technically-oriented have for years unilaterally decided that they can ignore theagreed conventions of the written language. After all, how could anything outside there narrow circle of interests possibly be important?
(The same arrogance still leads people who are contemptuous of the "soft" sciences to fail to recognise that natural language translation by machine is an extremely difficult problem).
There is a related issue, which is the tendency to speak (and think) in clichés - we can thank a century and a half of marketing and propaganda for that one. But it makes life very easy for politicians.
It is a serious threat to written English as a means of communication.
I beg to differ. Illiteracy in any form has never posed a threat to the survival of written English.
We need to distinguish between bad spelling (there for "their," for example) and abbreviated words (eg, L8 for "late"), these do not belong to the same category at all, though both may be a product of lazy writing in some contexts.
Bad spelling and punctuation may be annoying but the language has seen much longer periods of unstable orthography in the past, it's no more common than it ever was. In fact it's better than ever, historically speaking, and literacy is almost 100%.
Internet is a medium where we see a lot of writing. People who would never otherwise put pen to paper now have to write in order to communicate, so the small amount of illiteracy that remains in the population has suddenly become highly noticeable. It doesn't mean it wasn't there already.
And as for abbreviating words, it's evolving as all slang does, sometimes from necessity (of space in our case), sometimes as a joke, sometimes for the sake of speed or convenience. A huge amount of our modern vocabulary and expressions originated as codified or abbreviated language in just this way. As long as people know when to use it (and they will be forced to learn if not), it poses no threat to "established language."
I have contact with people from many countries. The same phenomenon is happening everywhere, it's the impact of mobile technology on the languages of the world. There will be no long-term harm.
I think that when you have the luxury of a full keyboard, and using a medium such as web forums, where you have time to think about and review your comments before submitting, then submitting posts such as the one showcased in this article is almost inexcusable.
Having said that, I often grant some leeway to posters in online forums, since in many cases English may not be their native language - you cannot always tell.
I think the language such as used in that post is (almost!) forgivable when using a mobile phone keypad, or some PocketPC touch keyboard - or when using some real-time media such as online chat rooms, or MMOs.
I had a colleage in the office (we are a professional engineering organisation) and he would use such language in normal emails to myself and other members of the group. It was not as extreme as in the showcase post, however it REALLY annoyed me. Having said that, no-one else in the group seemed to mind (or if they did they never said anything about it).
Consider this my vote for "it's yet another example of the decline of civilization", not unlike the popularity of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Americal Idol... :roll:
I made a similar post on Howardforums a few weeks ago. I couldn't believe how many people posted support in the thread but was even more surprised by the number of people I offended (and I didn't write anything offensive).
I'm not surprised. ;-) Different communities have different standards - you'll hear very different types of English if you stand on a downtown street corner versus a quiet suburban community. In the same way, our forums here have what I believe to be a very high standard for written communication. Howard's Forums are...different. Witness the size and style "sigs" over there and you'll see it's an utterly different type of community.
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Would'st thou yearn for a return to ye olden days? Aye, there's the rub. Whether 'tis better to abbreviate or not abbreviate. That is the question...
Methinks mayhap the answer is somewhat in the middle. There may evolve a new pidgin English for regular usage and a more formal one for the written word. I think many of those who wrote letters in the Victorian age would cringe at what passes as good diction today.
Consider this my vote for "it's yet another example of the decline of civilization", not unlike the popularity of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Americal Idol... :roll:
Ahem. Sir, those are fighting words!. :lol: I happen to thoroughly enjoy the UFC, it's the first sport in years that has truly interested me. It's a pure sport, two men in a ring, unspoiled like the ridiculous mainstream sports with their prissy $100 million dollar athletes, half of them doped up. But I digress... ;-)
I agree with you about American Idol though, I never watch it and find it a tad bit silly. But hey, to each their own...I think there are worse things on TV (Fear Factor anyone?).
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Destruction Of The English Language
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