So the other day at school, I was typing an email. To whom, I couldn't tell you, but I can tell you what stopped me in my tracks. I went to type a response and start a sentence with "You." But I didn't type "you." I shifted and typed "U." Yes, I actually shifted, as to be grammatically correct when starting a sentence with a capital letter...except, the letter I started with was a "u" not a "y" and my blood froze. Good God! I was going to start my sentence with the commonly used shorthand that we all have come to use in our abbreviated text language!
It occurred to me that, if I, a well-versed, dual-degreed individual, who is extremely fluent in the written word, slipped into text writing, then what chance do our students have of really mastering the English language, with all its syntactical issues and exceptions-to-every-rule grammatical structure?!
I can tell you one thing for sure. This mis-type was BAD news for my English students. I rose from my desk and walked around, with only one goal in my mind: they would write, more than ever before. More quick-writes, more timed writings, more essays and short answer responses. After all, what other defense do I have, as an English teacher, to the barrage of text conversations that occur daily in these young students' lives?
Another thought occurred to me, as well. The other known defense to poor writing is....yes, that's it, folks! READING! And lots of it! The more we see correct language in textual context, the higher the chance we have of incorporating it into our own writing.
But it gave way to an even more disparaging thought: At what point are we, as a society, going to simply give up and give in to the "easier" way in which we have come to communicate with one another? We already know that there are many standard methods used to correct misspellings and other grammar programs that check for spelling and mechanical errors. Yet, at what point are we, as a society, going to give into the easier, softer way of "writing" if we know that so much of our communication, written or otherwise, is no longer dependent on rules?
Can you imagine The Great Gatsby or Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter written in abbreviated text? William Shakespeare, or whoever wrote those amazing plays, would be turning over in his proverbial grave if he knew of my sacriledge! Ah, but maybe there is an assignment in that....what if I had my students do just that? Take a paragraph from a classic novel and put it into text format and then look at what is missing...the nuances that we would leave out if ALL of the words were written incorrectly or at half-mast. Hmmm. Maybe there is something to my mistake that I can find some silver lining in and use as a lesson.
What do you think? Is texting going to be the death of the beauty of our written word? Something to think about...or write about:)
I think the beauty of writing is how it can evolve throughout its own existence. Using the evolution as a, "death of beauty" would have killed words that came up in the language such as when shakespeare introduced the word. THE. There is also the argument that a book of literature could have a difference in why it is written a certain way. In reading an email maybe you can use informal text in an email. Context is everything. I would never expect a published writer or book such Hawthorne of Gatsby writing in abbreviation, but in haste maybe a text or email using different abbreviations to cut time I would expect. There is an obvious difference between the two, with the only difference being context. We are taught to use contextual clues on how to evaluate every situation, when talking to a governor or other city or state official I would call him, "dude" but if I was talking to my best friend I would use dude. Does that mean that language is dying, no it just means we are using contextual clues in our language just like we use them when writing a book, an email, or an essay for school.
ReplyDeleteSome great points made here...context DOES matter and maybe there is beauty in the evolution of language, being the organic creature that it is.
ReplyDeleteI will point out that, in spite of some grammatical errors YOU made in your post, the message overall was not lost. So the argument remains open: Are correct punctuation, syntax and stylistic matters ones we should concern ourselves with? I am still thinking "yes" for "Hello there!" still means something entirely different than "Hell, o there?" Right?:)
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