Texting and Grammar

[tbieter]

"Texting erodes kids' grammar skills, a study says. Those abbreviations rob them of a fundamental understanding of the language."
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/166794886.html

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/166794836.html

Kayla's messages on this forum show an ignorance of grammar and standard English (capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure, et cetera) I suspect that she texts a lot.: memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=5286

search.php?author_id=5286&sr=posts

[The Voice of Time]

can it be understood it's okay.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

can it be understood it's okay.

That's the whole point, bad grammar CAN'T be understood, at least not without a lot of effort, and even then the meaning can be ambiguous. Take what you just wrote as a case in point.

[The Voice of Time]

bad grammar doesn't necessarily mean unintelligible grammar, and there's also here the thing it's about cellphones, and it seems to me this then also includes SMS-language and so forth, which isn't "just bad grammar", but a sub-culture of talking. Given the amount of sub-culture influence these days and the easy availability to learn it with such sites as www.urbandictionary.com there really isn't any substantial problem at least with SMS-language or cyberslang or things like it. It's the world changing, and the old formalists not changing with it. The time is long gone when language could be enforced by government-policy in highly developed countries.

Anywho, if it's just the simple form of analphabeticism where people have an overall decreased capacity for language-communication then it's a different thing, and very serious. I hardly think this got anything to do with this though, as the world is becoming a very communicative place and therefore we're probably just left here with a new era cultural movement clashing with the old era culture. New dynamic partially disorganized language versus old formal static organized language.

I guess though a part of the problem here is misspellings, but this might prompt the question of whether language, especially English, isn't excessively lacking of intuition in its spelling-pattern. English is a very complicated language to spell, and I still make a lot of mistakes myself regarding such words as "strength" of whether the it should be "th" or "ht" at the end. The language might need revision to make it easier to spell, instead of trying to make people write unnecessary complicated.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

bad grammar doesn't necessarily mean unintelligible grammar, and there's also here the thing it's about cellphones, and it seems to me this then also includes SMS-language and so forth, which isn't "just bad grammar", but a sub-culture of talking. Given the amount of sub-culture influence these days and the easy availability to learn it with such sites as http://www.urbandictionary.com there really isn't any substantial problem at least with SMS-language or cyberslang or things like it. It's the world changing, and the old formalists not changing with it. The time is long gone when language could be enforced by government-policy in highly developed countries.

Anywho, if it's just the simple form of analphabeticism where people have an overall decreased capacity for language-communication then it's a different thing, and very serious. I hardly think this got anything to do with this though, as the world is becoming a very communicative place and therefore we're probably just left here with a new era cultural movement clashing with the old era culture. New dynamic partially disorganized language versus old formal static organized language.



I guess though a part of the problem here is misspellings, but this might prompt the question of whether language, especially English, isn't excessively lacking of intuition in its spelling-pattern. English is a very complicated language to spell, and I still make a lot of mistakes myself regarding such words as "strength" of whether the it should be "th" or "ht" at the end. The language might need revision to make it easier to spell, instead of trying to make people write unnecessary complicated.

You can't dumb it down to make it easier to spell. English has so many different accents and ways of pronouncing words that it would be impossible. Besides, dumbing down would take away the history of words, for example you can often work out the meaning of a word if you have a background in Latin. Messing around with spelling to accommodate those who can't be bothered to learn how to do it properly will do just that-create a mess. People who really understand the English language don't tend to have much trouble with spelling.

[The Voice of Time]

You can't dumb it down to make it easier to spell. English has so many different accents and ways of pronouncing words that it would be impossible. Besides, dumbing down would take away the history of words, for example you can often work out the meaning of a word if you have a background in Latin. Messing around with spelling to accommodate those who can't be bothered to learn how to do it properly will do just that-create a mess. People who really understand the English language don't tend to have much trouble with spelling.

oh please! How serious can you take your own argument that latin or other origins of words are how people understand any word. Only specially interested people do that and they should have no problem with it anyways (how many people are you expecting to know latin besides priests, biologists and doctors? Where only a portion of them know I might add) ^^ Anyways, what I mean by simplification is not dumbing down, as dumbing down requires it to be intelligent in the first place, but that's like saying it's intelligent of kindergarten children to write a bunch of random curvatures in different colours along a sheet of paper! Yes it's complex, maybe even categorically abstract art, but it's not at all very intelligent! It's already messed up the language, both the alphabet and the spelling, and simplifying it is just bringing it back to reason.

For instance, a word like "accommodation" could be written like "akomodashion", and even more preferably you'd introduce a new letter, like some "s" with some "~" or something above it to signify the sound of "-tion" and "-sh". Though a better example would be words like "bought" which in norwegian, very straight forward with all letters equating just one sound (no partial nor any additional sound), would've been spelled "båt". Now how much easier isn't that? How much more logical isn't that? (the norwegian letter "å" equates the sound of "ough" in "bought" Four letters to make one sound in English, one in norwegian).

And about understanding you are saying that people who understand, they understand... no kidding me are you? There are more than quarter of a million English words... how many of them can you spell? Lots of them are archaic and uses old outdated heavily illogical spellings. The part which is mostly used in daily life today is the easy part for the parts of life people need their words. How many difficult spellings do you do during a day with people not affiliated with technical groups like this forum here? If you have a kid, if you have a girlfriend; do you use words like "assessment" when you speak about personal economy or do you talk about buying less cigarettes or maybe buying a car? You avoid difficult words because all people naturally want to speak the most efficiently. Efficiency is lost the more time you have to spend just getting the illogical system working...

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Why wouldn't I take it seriously? It's true. You are also proving my original point with everything you write. I know that you are Norwegian, but plenty of native English speakers write just as poorly, and many a lot worse. I once read part of a diary of a young American boy (9 years old). The writing was beautiful, with perfect spelling and grammar. He was just an average little boy of the time. What has happened between then and now? How did people back then manage to cope with this 'terribly difficult' language? Now you are suggesting we dumb it down for the already dumbed-down?

[reasonvemotion]

It depends on how much you love your language.

I have a love affair with the English language and this goes back to when I was a small child. Initally instilled in me by my parents and then overtaken by a need to know. Bad spelling to me, shows a lack of love for the language and a disinterest in it. It is a tool for creation not just communication.

As an afterthought. I have a friend, who spells everything phonetically, its like another language. Yet, after two years, I can understand every word he types and would not want him to change this.

edit typo.....lol

[vegetariantaxidermy]

-

[The Voice of Time]

I don't love my own language for its grammar, that's for sure. I like the alphabet more than English but that's because it's fundamentally much more straight-forward. English is better to speak though (and I do have an affection for English which often makes me forget my own language).

Norwegian has lots of faults, with words like "jeg" which means "I" only having the first letter equating its pronunciation. It's an awful word I think, "jeg", technically.

[reasonvemotion]

Voice of Time.

You have a remarkable grasp of the English language. I am told it is one of the most difficult to learn.

[The Voice of Time]

Voice of Time.

You have a remarkable grasp of the English language. I am told it is one of the most difficult to learn.

In Norway we learn English from the age of 6. However, I was a poor student at homework, and instead taught myself English through playing World of Warcraft and writing English Fantasy from the age of 13. When you write you always have to make yourself certain of rules and stuff like it, and after a while you become more used to learning English than perfecting your own language, and suddenly you start reading more English than Norwegian, a phenomena enabled by internet mostly, and of course auto-correction helps me a lot in not forgetting about the spelling and grammar.

I still have little to no understanding of the formal grammar however, like Past Tense and all that crap. I don't know what is what I just do whatever works out to be correct.

A language is difficult if it is very different from your own, as a basic rule. Of course, there are some other factors as well inherent to languages, but if you grow up in the environment it all comes natural. Norwegian is quite simple if you know German or Swedish or Danish (the two later being so similar you can speak with a Swede or a Dane using Norwegian). If you know... i don't know, Arabic, then Norwegian is a pain in the arse. If you're French you'll find many French-like words in English (though quite different pronunciations), same with Spanish. Compared to French, English is easy-mode. French is a completely non-reasonable language. Just to say a word like water you have to write it like "eau" and say it with a single sound: "o", or at least the corresponding pronunciation in Norwegian, as the English alphabet pronounce their letter "o" as "åoh". The sound is like the "oo" in "moo" from the cow.

EDIT: my facebook is also in English, as a habit I've made myself for no apparent reason

[marjoramblues]

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[John]

Here's a counter viewpoint: http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca ... mar-panic/.

[thedoc]

I have also heard that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn but growing up with it makes it easier. At a certain age children can very easily learn different languages. My grandaughret turned 2 and refused to talk, she understood the words and could make the sounds, but was just being stubborn. We started showing her 'Baby Signing Time' DVD's and she satarted learning that and then started verbalizing the words.

Anyway to the point, texting is developing into a variation of English and is good in it's place. The problem is whan people start to use it in everyday conversation or writing and others, not as well versed in texting, don't understand. As with any comunication, a failure to accomidate your audience will only add to the confusion, which brings up the question, Whose responsability is it to make sure the communication is understood? The one who is speaking/writing or the one who is listening/ reading. Communication is the transfer of informatiion, who bears the burden of understanding.