Welcome back to my blog. I recently
read an article called “F in Grammar? Maybe It’s Your Phone’s Fault” by Alessandra
Potenza, and I’ve decided to post about my thoughts on it. The topic of the
article: How texting and tweeting are affecting how teens and younger adults
write.
The writing of many young people
has been declining in quality over the past few years. English teachers,
college admissions officers, and employers are finding a lot more mistakes in
grammar and writing then they used to. The problem is increasing in the age of
social media (with networks like Facebook and Twitter) and texting. A 2008
study of teenage grammar yielded some interesting results. It found that 64 percent of teenagers used an
informal writing style (like those used in texting) in their schoolwork. 50
percent used unnecessary or improper capitalization, 38 percent used LOL, and
25 percent even included emoticons. But even that was five years ago. The
English language is always evolving, but this time it may not be in a good way.
Spell check is another factor that
is changing the English language and affecting how teens write. With spell
check, you don’t have to spell things perfectly, as the program will tell you
what you spelled wrong, and then give you options to correct your writing with.
This could actually be a very useful tool if people took the time to proofread
what they wrote and go back and fix it, and it could also be used to learn from
your mistakes so you won’t make them again. But many people are too lazy to go
back and fix their errors, and others don’t really learn from their mistakes and
make the same ones on tests and quizzes without the spellcheck. Living in an
age of technology, we should use it to our advantage, not just to tweet or
communicate with friends.
Lastly, as I have already
mentioned, the English language is constantly evolving. Many say that the
language is going down the tubes, but Patricia O’Connor, a blogger at
Grammarphobia, has other ideas. “‘Ever since the days of Chaucer, people have
been complaining ‘Oh, English isn’t what it was. It’s been corrupted.’ …And the
truth is, English is a living language.’”
She argues that the evolving grammar is perfectly natural. I agree only
to some extent; the language is definitely evolving, but I hope we never get to
a day where “i realy like to 2 go 2 places with my friends” is correct grammar
and perfectly acceptable. But for now, the colleges and employers will not accept
applications like those. As O’Connor says, even with the language’s evolution, “‘People
are going to judge you by what you write.’”
Picture: http://www.personal.psu.edu/afr3/blogs/SIOW/texting2%5B1%5D.jpg
I completely agree with what you said about never getting to a day where "i realy like to 2 go 2 places with my friends" is acceptable. Colleges and employers should not accept applications with writing similar to that. Also, spellcheck could be useful, but I agree, people shouldn't just depend on that; they need some level of knowledge of spelling. You're right, the English language is evolving, and I don't believe it's in a good way.
ReplyDeleteWriting is a very important tool in our life and with the current trend of texting, tweeting, and facebooking it seems there is no time we really use correct grammar outside of school. Spellcheck is a good tool for writing but people grow to dependent on it. Teachers are going to work extra hard to get proper grammar use among students. I try to avoid using all the grammar slang possible but it's hard to with the amount of people using it. Grammar is something necessary for life and getting jobs will defiantly test your grammar but we have other issues for example people will say "I like totally love that pizza" you don't need the "like" in the sentence. Grammar is a life tool and it is important to know and understand it.
ReplyDeleteI think you have some good points in your thoughts about the article. I think that good grammar and writing helps everyone out at one point or another; to get jobs, on presentations, and plain old communication. If we write what feel, and we write the wrong things, then our messages will be unclear to the people reading them. Our messages or pieces of writing are being interfered with by spell check and slang. People may come off as something that they don't want to, have no way to express their real emotion with our language, which would be negatively affecting our language; like you said. I believe that if you would like to learn the definition of something, you should look it up in a dictionary. Either it be electronic or physical. Words can change too fast, due to people misusing them in texts. For example, the word gay. By definition it means; happy, but nowadays people are using it to negatively describe nouns. Gay was plastered onto people that like people of the other gender, since they were happy. People then took this word as negatively since they thought that being attracted to the same gender was bad. And so the word spread, with others copying it and using it with out the knowledge of its real meaning, and now is interpreted as something else. Also, emojis are becoming a new sensation. Electronic faces shouldn't describe people's feelings when their face lacks the ability. People should be able to efficiently describe what they feel to others, with out the help of miniature faces doing it for them. If people cannot complete the task of describing themselves, then they need to learn more words in our language in order to do so. And grammar in text messaging it fairly poor. Periods are missing, capital letters are over used, "u" is used to represent "you", and improper words are used. Grammar is important in a message to get what tone your using, and what you actually mean. Grammar is something I believe is useful in life and shouldn't go away, we need it to communicate efficiently.
ReplyDelete