TEXT-SPEAK
Like a bad movie, this is a sequel up to my blog on the assassination of the King’s English in the internet.
I read today in the news that school officials in New Zealand just issued an announcement. New Zealand’s high school students will be able to use “text-speak” in national exams this year. “Text-speak” is of course the mobile phone text message language started and used by teen-agers. As I have decried, it is now gaining common usage, including in the internet.
I am fortunate that I have an ex-teenager (now in his early twenties) and two teen-agers with whom I have on occasions exchanged text messages, so I am vaguely familiar with this new language. It is composed mostly of abbreviations, contractions, acronyms, made-up shortcut words and alpha-numeric type of shorthand that is evolving into common usage.
In my previous blog, I gave several examples of all this. I have also begun to see words I have never seen before, like “prolly” for “probably” and many shorthand conventions like “brb” for “be right back,” “ty” for “thank you,” and “yw” for “you’re welcome” or the now acceptable “your welcome.”
I am highly disturbed by this turn of events. I can understand the use of text-speak creeping into the internet. After all, isn’t the internet a reflection of reality, distorted though it may seem?
But the classroom is a different story. I thought we sent our children to school to learn. I would assume that includes learning proper English.
For example, are they allowing the use of text-speak in English composition or grammar or literature? I remember my English subjects. Nothing would earn us a huge deduction more than wrong spelling or wrong syntax. I remember that even in History classes, we were penalized for wrong spelling and atrocious English.
Okay, I realize that this is happening in New Zealand, and I must profess some ignorance in the New Zealand educational system. So I will try not to get too agitated. I just dread to think something similar happening in the United States.
You can be sure I will be checking my children’s English composition assignments a little bit closer from now on. And I already have my hands full with the new math.
I read today in the news that school officials in New Zealand just issued an announcement. New Zealand’s high school students will be able to use “text-speak” in national exams this year. “Text-speak” is of course the mobile phone text message language started and used by teen-agers. As I have decried, it is now gaining common usage, including in the internet.
I am fortunate that I have an ex-teenager (now in his early twenties) and two teen-agers with whom I have on occasions exchanged text messages, so I am vaguely familiar with this new language. It is composed mostly of abbreviations, contractions, acronyms, made-up shortcut words and alpha-numeric type of shorthand that is evolving into common usage.
In my previous blog, I gave several examples of all this. I have also begun to see words I have never seen before, like “prolly” for “probably” and many shorthand conventions like “brb” for “be right back,” “ty” for “thank you,” and “yw” for “you’re welcome” or the now acceptable “your welcome.”
I am highly disturbed by this turn of events. I can understand the use of text-speak creeping into the internet. After all, isn’t the internet a reflection of reality, distorted though it may seem?
But the classroom is a different story. I thought we sent our children to school to learn. I would assume that includes learning proper English.
For example, are they allowing the use of text-speak in English composition or grammar or literature? I remember my English subjects. Nothing would earn us a huge deduction more than wrong spelling or wrong syntax. I remember that even in History classes, we were penalized for wrong spelling and atrocious English.
Okay, I realize that this is happening in New Zealand, and I must profess some ignorance in the New Zealand educational system. So I will try not to get too agitated. I just dread to think something similar happening in the United States.
You can be sure I will be checking my children’s English composition assignments a little bit closer from now on. And I already have my hands full with the new math.
posted by jay de leon at 7:48 PM
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