What happened to the English Language?

[AliceofMaidoraHearts]

disliker of the mary sue

either a person is so addicted to texting that they naturally type that way or they are simple very too lazy to spell out words.

I think she pretty much has the right idea, considering almost everyone who I have met that owns a celluar phone has a texting plan, and because when on the phone, it it easier to to type that way; they become addicted and once they are on the computer actually typing, they're to lazy too type the way they're supposed too, and are so used to typing that way they just can't stop.  

[SilentShadowDreamer]

zfatal

Well, when at the computer, I believe most people who type like that haven't actually learned how to type. They may tap one key at a time with the same finger, at a turtle's pace.

*tap*... ... *tap* *tap* ... ... ... ... ... ... (Oh, I found Q.) *tap* ... ... ... (Where's U?).

But...a lot of these people are around my age, maybe a little younger. Didn't they have to take typing classes in elementary school? I know I did, and that's why I type so fast now. (My dad, on the other hand, does type like that - but at least he still uses reasonable grammar.)

Back on topic:

People are lazy. They want to look cool. And some of them really just do not know how to spell, and are afraid that others will mock their spelling errors. Either way it's kind of painful, but personally, I would prefer that they at least tried to spell correctly.

And re Monster of Cookies's point: Symbol-typing? I can live with it in a title, because a title is only a few words long, but when the whole entire damned post is written in symbols or TyPeD lIkE tHiS, it can go die. In a fire.

...That is all.  

[Hopeful Bliss]

Bernadette Rachel

Habit. Too true. Now my wonder. Is it too big of a habit that people have written like that on say, a school paper? Hm, I just wonder.

Usually people are more careful not to do that in school essays and whatnot but it has been done.  

[PenPhantom]

Usually people do it to shorten words so they don't have to type it all out, which is a bit lazy in my opinion. Sometimes they also think it sounds "cute" and don't realize how ridiculous a sentence looks when every other word is typed like someone texted it in a hurry.  

[Master Azrael Reaper]

the english language evolved, txt talk being a part of it, and unfortunatly some ppl are not willing to change with it.

if a person really has a problem with that, then they better learn to speak in old-english, with a british accent, because otherwise they are embrasing the changes made so far.  

[adrena_extermina]

I do that kind of grammar when I'm kidding around and just being a troll especially in the Chatterbox Forum. sweatdrop blaugh  

[B1g_crunch]

I think it depends on how much a person texts.

If they are used to short messages and abbreviated or misspelled words, they're more likely to resort to it out of convenience.

For people who care about context and don't text as much, they'd probably put in an effort to form more coherent sentences.  

[BabyGirlAiko]

Well, why do we use contractions? Contractions are abbreviations as well that got accepted into the descriptive language. I tend to use both depending on how much I am saying. On text, we have limited amount of space, and it's much faster. When typing, it can be much faster.

Now think of it like this: how many of us have actually tried to create a language or code with friends. Coming up with our own words as inside jokes. Text is like a youth code. It's cool when you think of it, because it's not a new language, no, it's a form of writing.

Now, take this into consideration. When you are an adult on adult things, you don't see text talk because there aren't kids. Now, when you're an adult on kid things, you see text talk. Games. Adults can play games, but who are they geared towards? Kids. They expect adults to have families, jobs, social lives, money, and better things to do than games. Social websites. Made for the grounded kid who wants to talk to their friends or the kids who are up at night still talking to them and they ran out of texts on their plan. Not adults who can go get in their car and go meet up with their friends.

Granted, most adults don't live this lifestyle. But it's the standard. So when you're on the internet, take into account who else is on there. Don't get mad at kids for being kids. Don't be mad at adults who still want to be kids because they aren't ready to grow up. Also, don't be mad at international people who are learning English and think it is normal to speak like that. None of us are grammatically correct when we write or speak. That was quite devastating to find out as an English major.

Also think, we're on a kids site right now. Yeah, there's a fair amount of adults on here still, but we got it as kids because it was created for such.

So, my opinion on why people still type like that on the computer, because they can.  

[Rikusi]

Language changes with humans and time, we're only noticing it more now since we've become more globally connected. I think some of the nuisance of this text speak is because of this: because we seem to have this motive, thanks to the interwebs partially, to keep everyone unified on some level. Whether or not someone text-types is their choice, like Aiko said, and yeah, it may be annoying...but...if you study Old English...(not Shakespeare or Chaucer, think the weird names in LoTR or what Merlin and the magic people use in their incantations on the show) it sounds almost like a foreign language, you'll see there are other cases and all this complex written and spoken grammar that English has lost over time.  

[ima cake just dont eat me]

General Lea

Honestly, I loathe text talk. I usually don't use it unless I'm in a rush to reply to a message of real importance (because I have a regular cell, not a texting phone, I have to slowly type one...damn..letter...at....a....time).

I blame this new addiction the the horrible spelling kids are gaining now. That, and schools aren't correcting their mistakes, they're just ignoring them. It's proven by science that kids learn by repetition, and I don't think kids are getting that as well as they should b.

What really bugs me is when someone is using for example, an apple. Then they add another. That would be two apples right? NOPE. It's become two "apple's" with a damned apostrophe. Even businesses and such are using this improper plural on signs. It makes me think they're a bad company, because they can't even spell. Now, it would be right if the apple owned something kinda like "Applebee's" which is a restaurant, owned by a person who has that as their last name. But the simple plural is not right. Same with dog's, cat's, etc. [Fawful-speak] THEY'RE PLURAL, THEY ARE NOT OWNING ANYTHING! I have anger followed by chortles at such stupidity. [/Fawful] This atrocity angers me, bugs me.

what if they do not understand grammar properly and failed there English GCSE?  

[Miss Cider]

Master Azrael Reaper

the english language evolved, txt talk being a part of it, and unfortunatly some ppl are not willing to change with it.

if a person really has a problem with that, then they better learn to speak in old-english, with a british accent, because otherwise they are embrasing the changes made so far.

False. To evolve is to gradually develope from a simple and primeval form into something more advanced and complex. The proper term for the so-called 'txt tlk' is devolution, or the reverse of evolution. The english language is dying, and it is fortunate that there are still people out there who refuse to allow their intelligence to die with it.
I can understand abbreviations in places like Twitter, where you have a limited amount of characters to get your meaning across, or when actually texting, but when you have a full-sized keyboard and a handy-dandy spellcheck at your disposal, I find it rude to insist upon typing 'wit st00pid mispelin dat cun beh s eay fixe.'
People have said that text speach is easier to read, however, I find it much more difficult to decipher than plain, conventional english.  

[General Lea]

ima cake just dont eat me

General Lea

Honestly, I loathe text talk. I usually don't use it unless I'm in a rush to reply to a message of real importance (because I have a regular cell, not a texting phone, I have to slowly type one...damn..letter...at....a....time).

I blame this new addiction the the horrible spelling kids are gaining now. That, and schools aren't correcting their mistakes, they're just ignoring them. It's proven by science that kids learn by repetition, and I don't think kids are getting that as well as they should b.

What really bugs me is when someone is using for example, an apple. Then they add another. That would be two apples right? NOPE. It's become two "apple's" with a damned apostrophe. Even businesses and such are using this improper plural on signs. It makes me think they're a bad company, because they can't even spell. Now, it would be right if the apple owned something kinda like "Applebee's" which is a restaurant, owned by a person who has that as their last name. But the simple plural is not right. Same with dog's, cat's, etc. [Fawful-speak] THEY'RE PLURAL, THEY ARE NOT OWNING ANYTHING! I have anger followed by chortles at such stupidity. [/Fawful] This atrocity angers me, bugs me.

what if they do not understand grammar properly and failed their English GCSE?

Well, if they're out of America, just learning English and they did fail their GCSE then I have nothing against them. English is said to be a brutal second language. But at the same time professional businesses are hiring these folks, whoever they may be, foreign or local, and are publicly humiliating themselves with poor grammar. Often I find it's the white folks from around my area of America that do this glaring apostrophe error. It's as if they find it cute to have everything that's a noun be possessive. confused  

[ima cake just dont eat me]

General Lea

Well, if they're out of America, just learning English and they did fail their GCSE then I have nothing against them. English is said to be a brutal second language. But at the same time professional businesses are hiring these folks, whoever they may be, foreign or local, and are publicly humiliating themselves with poor grammar. Often I find it's the white folks from around my area of America that do this glaring apostrophe error. It's as if they find it cute to have everything that's a noun be possessive. confused

what about born and raised British/American people that failed their English GCSE?  

[General Lea]

ima cake just dont eat me

General Lea

Well, if they're out of America, just learning English and they did fail their GCSE then I have nothing against them. English is said to be a brutal second language. But at the same time professional businesses are hiring these folks, whoever they may be, foreign or local, and are publicly humiliating themselves with poor grammar. Often I find it's the white folks from around my area of America that do this glaring apostrophe error. It's as if they find it cute to have everything that's a noun be possessive. confused

what about born and raised British/American people that failed their English GCSE?

I'm not really sure why you asked me about Brits who failed, because I said "foreigners/ English as second language". However, anyone who has English as their first language and failed their GCSE has little excuse to use an apostrophe so atrociously for years on end with no correction... They would get their mistakes corrected and they'd try taking the test again, no? They would then take their test again and hopefully pass/ understand their previous errors. But if America's system is an indicator (which I'm in no way saying it is for strictly British education), perhaps they were simply shoved to the next grade with the bare minimum (provided they passed their state testing in the US) and were simply never properly educated on the matter. It happens so often now that kids miss out on concepts because of too many classmates in the same room as well as too fast a pace.

I'm not pinning the blame on poor grammar in my previously mentioned instance on individuals so much as professional businesses for not properly utilizing professional editors or bringing in someone with English knowledge to double check signage and such before it's publicly displayed. Be it laziness or ignorance or whatever, it doesn't look good to "cut corners" or what have you and have a sign with errors. Does it affect sales? Probably not. But it sure bugs me to no end. xd To me it's sorta like seeing Engrish signage in Asian countries where English is rarely spoken in comparison to native languages.  

[ima cake just dont eat me]

General Lea

I'm not really sure why you asked me about Brits who failed, because I said "foreigners/ English as second language". However, anyone who has English as their first language and failed their GCSE has little excuse to use an apostrophe so atrociously for years on end with no correction... They would get their mistakes corrected and they'd try taking the test again, no? They would then take their test again and hopefully pass/ understand their previous errors. But if America's system is an indicator (which I'm in no way saying it is for strictly British education), perhaps they were simply shoved to the next grade with the bare minimum (provided they passed their state testing in the US) and were simply never properly educated on the matter. It happens so often now that kids miss out on concepts because of too many classmates in the same room as well as too fast a pace.
I'm not pinning the blame on poor grammar in my previously mentioned instance on individuals so much as professional businesses for not properly utilizing professional editors or bringing in someone with English knowledge to double check signage and such before it's publicly displayed. Be it laziness or ignorance or whatever, it doesn't look good to "cut corners" or what have you and have a sign with errors. Does it affect sales? Probably not. But it sure bugs me to no end. xd To me it's sorta like seeing Engrish signage in Asian countries where English is rarely spoken in comparison to native languages.

i asked because i was curious about your opinion, no other reason.

Miss Emni Rose

False. To evolve is to gradually develope from a simple and primeval form into something more advanced and complex. The proper term for the so-called 'txt tlk' is devolution, or the reverse of evolution. The english language is dying, and it is fortunate that there are still people out there who refuse to allow their intelligence to die with it.
I can understand abbreviations in places like Twitter, where you have a limited amount of characters to get your meaning across, or when actually texting, but when you have a full-sized keyboard and a handy-dandy spellcheck at your disposal, I find it rude to insist upon typing 'wit st00pid mispelin dat cun beh s eay fixe.'
People have said that text speach is easier to read, however, I find it much more difficult to decipher than plain, conventional english.

I agree with you for the most part, but I think your wrong about the fact that its devolving. You may not like the branch of evolution the English language has taken but that does not mean it has devolved. If Shakespeare were alive he would probably think that our conventional English has desecrated his language. Time moves ever onwards and things change not always for the better admittedly, however that's just a part of life.