Written in response to Mark’s post nu zlnd ed sux
Lynne Truss, author of the humorous punctuation book Eats, Shoots, and Leaves had a similar grievance about text-speak in one of her chapters. At the time, I agreed wholeheartedly.
However, after some thought, I cannot help but remember this is just another development in language. I may not like or agree with it, but as those of us brainwashed — I mean educated by Dr. Aaron Smith of Illinois State University, we have a healthy schizophrenia about this. I recognize this as a linguistic feature, but as an English teacher (or faux-English teacher) I am generally apalled.
This isn’t necessarily my generation, however. I don’t always like this short hand system of writing, but I have been known to use it. When I read it in fic, it’s generally an indication to me that the story isn’t worth my time if the author couldn’t find the time to write out the whole word.
I cannot help but wonder, however, if during the advent of contractions, philiogists and other die-hard grammarians were feeling the same thing we are about SMS in formal writing.
So, backformation? How would we classify this? My linguistic knowledge seems to be atrophying.
You know I am right there in your schizophrenia. However, we also learned that language is like clothing (and an onion…). There are times to use it and times to hide it away in the language closet. For example, a business situation is not time to use it. Where I’m currently working, I have to interact with vendors and sales reps and often we correspond by email. And I must say, I cringe and become annoyed as one of the sales reps signs her emails with “tks” instead of “thanks”. And she does it every single time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually created it as part of her electronic signature. Come on, how hard is it to add three more letters, especially in a business-related email to someone you don’t know? So no, I don’t really like this current evolution of the language but I realize there’s not much to be done to stop it so all I can say is know when to use it, people! Ahem…I hope you enjoy the lovely rant that was aimed at people who will likely never see it…..
I would not hide onions in my closet…
That aside, I agree that “net speak” is not a prestigious language variety. Which way will Nu Zlnd’s incorporation of it - even partially - into acceptable educational communication push the prestige bar? Up for the variety? Or down for the users? So far, it looks like the latter, but if such practices /do/ spread…
In some places, I /do/ see the usefulness of being allowed to abbreviated word forms, like on timed tests that include essay answers. Especially in college, actually. I think I actually did use some abbreviations, like U.S. for United States, and other bits I could get away with. I don’t want to write entirely in shorthand, but as long as my text is intelligible enough to carry across the content of my essay, I’d love to have a few extra moments stolen from writing earlier sentences more quickly to be able to get that summary sentence or another good supporting one in… If time’s not an issue, then yes, let’s do include the whole word.
..Aaand, in review, I’m just now getting what Jessi was saying about contractions-! :p