This week I
was teaching English to my sixth formers and asked them a very simple (and I
had better add relevant) question that resulted in a surprising answer. I
assumed that teenagers would be au fait with the latest trends in text speak. I
stood ready with my board pen in hand to write down all of the wonderful
acronyms and homophonic representations that they used daily. My lesson did not
go quite as I had hoped when they patiently explained that they thought text
speak was rather silly, was mostly used by their parents trying to be cool, and that they like to write in full, grammatically
correct sentences. It would seem, at least amongst the teenagers I teach, that
sending nonsensical texts littered with abbreviations is a thing of the past.
The younger generation have been less affected by trends in Internet language than
we might expect. All of which made me a bit embarrassed of my own punctuationless
and carelessly written messages i mite well b goin thru erli midlif crysis lol
asdfghjkl wld h8 dat xox
Well, I'm thrilled to know some teenagers like old-fashioned, grammatically correct, properly spelled sentences! I never do anything like your last example, but I admit to using w/ for with, yr for your, bk for book, as well as ampersands, omitted commas, etc., in Twitter. It's almost impossible to say anything there if you don't abbreviate!
ReplyDeleteJust found your blog, good job sir!
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's because back in early days of mobile phones, you were very limited on the amount of text you could send - it wouldn't automagically spread it accross multiple messages if you went over the 160 letter limit. Now, with the advent of smartphones and stupidphones, you can write a whole novel and send it via text... maybe something you could try? A 'novel' experiment you could say!
Very funny - thanks Phil!
ReplyDeleteA kind of interesting post.
ReplyDeletechurch website
Thank God, is my response. I had visions of a future where language had done a round robin and been abbreviated to the point where we sounded like the cliche cave man with grunts and gang-sign-like gestures. I would love it if some day a Vulcan mind-meld were possible. But I digress. Great blog, a pleasure to read.
ReplyDeleteI wish my students felt the same way. Good stuff Phil --
ReplyDelete