(picture taken from this internet article)
Do you like to text? It's no longer enough to study English to be able to send text messages in it... Text messaging is a whole new dialect!
All of those texts -- and grammar/spelling violations -- have stirred up quite a debate in the academic world!
International attention was paid to a supposed student essay back in 2003 -- written entirely in text messaging. At the time, people thought it was real -- and there was outrage about the deterioration of our language by commentators in newspapers, on television and on the internet.
Here's the introduction from the hoax essay:
"My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :- kids FTF. ILNY, it's a gr8 plc."
Translated into proper English, it read: "My summer holidays were a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face. I love New York. It's a great place."
An American author, David Crystal, thinks that all of the fuss about the demise of the English language is a bunch of fuss about nothing. In his book "Txtng: The Gr8 Db8," he makes the following points:
- Text messages aren’t full of abbreviations - typically less than ten percent of the words use them.
- These abbreviations aren’t a new language - they’ve been around for decades.
- They aren’t just used by kids - aults of all ages and institutions are the leading texters these days.
- Pupils don’t routinely put them into their school-work or examinations.
- It isn’t a cause of bad spelling: you have to know how to spell before you can text.
- Texting actually improves your literacy, as it gives you more practice in reading and writing.
Check out this super site to see a complete list of all text message abbreviations!
