When I began my schooling quite a few years ago, we didn’t have computers, there was no such thing as e-mail and we were lucky if we had a functional overhead projector (many of you might remember it as the predecessor to PowerPoint). And before that, teachers had to settle for a plain old blackboard as a means of presenting information to their students. In this ever-changing, fast-paced world, when it comes to presentation of information, it is presumed the quicker, the better. However, when you take into consideration just how quickly we’re moving, I have reason to believe that speed is not always a good thing when the minds of today’s youth are at stake.
With the advent of computers, it seems that a lot has been sacrificed. Writing, penmanship, proper word usage and vocabulary have all been taking a hit now that we have software programs that do all the work. Sure, when someone has horrific handwriting skills, it may be harder for the teacher to make out words; either way, it should be practiced regularly in the classroom for other reasons. Writing aides in the process of forming sentences and learning words and word usage. Like one of my old high school English teachers spouted off on a regular basis: “You ARE spell check.”
While I admit that I rolled my eyes just about every time those words escaped her lips, I totally understand what she was getting at all those years ago. Just because you have a machine that corrects spelling and, sometimes, grammar, that doesn’t mean it will fix everything. For example, if you type “witch” when what you meant was “which” or you type “right” when you should have entered “write,” you’re on your own. If you just let the computer do all the work, you may end up with correct spelling, but you’ll end up looking like an imbecile in the long run.
Having spent the better part of my educational career studying the English language, I have a keen disdain for people who misspell or use the wrong form of words ... especially when we have all this technology to give us the right answers. If it weren’t bad enough that generation X already has a difficult time comprehending the their/there/they’re, to/too/two and you’re/your conundrums, we now have messaging geniuses (and I use that term loosely, mind you) further corrupting the English language. For all of you out there who have, thus far, been lucky enough to avoid this plague, here’s a brief synopsis.
Beginning with the dawn of instant messaging, people, for some reason or another, decided to exercise their right to be lazy, exchanging a few letters for entire words or even whole sentences (i.e. brb = be right back; lol = laughing out loud; your/you’re = ur; nm = never mind; b4 = before). While those are just a few examples, it upsets me that these are becoming part of everyday interaction via this blasted thing we call the Internet and has become even more popularized since cell phone companies introduced text messaging. I’m not going to lie, I cringe every time someone sends me a text that says, “k, thnx.” I mean, I understand the message being conveyed, but did I somehow miss the memo about vowels becoming optional?
I guess I just don’t understand how people can be in such a hurry that all of that quality education just goes right out the window. All I know is I either hope this is just a passing trends or that I’m not around when this abbreviated language becomes everyday practice taught in a classroom. I shudder to think that, one day, there might be a class in school entitled “Introduction to Text Messaging.”
Jennie Oemig
Editor
Arcadia News-Leader
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