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TheBeano

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Joined: 01/18/2006
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The English Language - A Rant

DISCLAIMER: This is not directed at anyone in particular, but rather is a comment on the state of the English language in general.

I hate whining about things, but I need to get something off of my chest. WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE? I know we're all busy and our time is limited, but is it really faster to abbreviate, butcher and bastardize this wonderful language? Does it really take much longer to type "really" vs "rly" or "anyway" vs. "neway" or "forgot" vs. "4got." Maybe I'm getting older, maybe I'm getting crotchity or maybe I'm way off the mark. Why can't we take more time to learn to write and type properly. Being a teacher, it concerns me that our young people (our future leaders) may not be taking the time to learn proper writing skills, or if they are being taught in school, bad habits are being learned on forums like this, through Instant Messaging and other areas.

I don't have a solution to this problem as yet, but would love to hear some comments from the community. Is this really a problem or am I being picky? What are some solutions?

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I don't claim to be perfect, but writing is something I take pride in.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

11/23/06 12:01

Tribina

Posts: 24
Joined: 09/19/2005
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RE: The English Language - A Rant

I agree with you for a big part ;-)
Sometimes it takes quit a while even to figure out what they are meaning to tell you..
In dutch (and especially with young people) you get that a lot as well..

Blame it on the society I guess.. people gotta pay to send text messages and try to shorten words just to be able to place more content in a short message

On the other hand I agree with using it when you are quit busy..
I mean with 15 whispers at the same time, I use quit a lot of those words as well:

plz, thx, c ya mainly..
the rest is not really my kind of thing ;-)

grtz

11/23/06 12:10

NecroRebel

Posts: 15
Joined: 10/11/2005
Credibility: 0 pts

RE: The English Language - A Rant

QUOTE

DISCLAIMER: This is not directly at anyone in particular, but rather is a comment on the state of the English language in general.

I hate whining about things, but I need to get something off of my chest. WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE? I know we're all busy and our time is limited, but is it really faster to abbreviate, butcher and bastardize this wonderful language? Does it really take much longer to type "really" vs "rly" or "anyway" vs. "neway" or "forgot" vs. "4got." Maybe I'm getting older, maybe I'm getting crotchity or maybe I'm way off the mark. Why can't we take more time to learn to write and type properly. Being a teacher, it concerns me that our young people (our future leaders) may not be taking the time to learn proper writing skills, or if they are being taught in school, bad habits are being learned on forums like this, through Instant Messaging and other areas.

I don't have a solution to this problem as yet, but would love to hear some comments from the community. Is this really a problem or am I being picky? What are some solutions?

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I don't claim to be perfect, but writing is something I take pride in.

The English language has been getting more and more screwed up everywhere, especially on the internet. Still, it is just the natural progression of language; in a hundred years, people in the States might be saying "Eyemoh" (IMO) to mean "in my opinion," for example. My French teacher from high school actually commented that people might start saying "whathel" instead of "what" because of the prevalence of people saying "what the hell" constantly.

For myself, I try to actually type words out most of the time, as well as using proper punctuation and grammar, but at the same time I do insert common abbreviations in... I do find the people who honestly don't know proper punctuation and grammar to be a bit sad, though, because it can't be good for them to use gamerspeak on academic or business papers.

Though it isn't very good, at the same time you're also being a bit picky... This is the way language develops. You're just getting on the tail end of American English's reign and starting to get into a plain American language :)

11/23/06 12:11

Carl Jenkins

Posts: 68
Joined: 09/13/2006
Credibility: 4 pts

RE: The English Language - A Rant

People write like this for 3 reasons

1. It's slightly faster than typing out the whole word.

2. If your typing out something in All Chat that won't fit into one message, than you would like to quickly follow it up with the rest of the message.

3. And like what Tribiana said, by saying "4" instead of "four", and other shortners like this you can fit more content into a little text message on a cell phone.

My hidden talent is invisibility!

11/23/06 12:23

TheBeano

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Joined: 01/18/2006
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RE: The English Language - A Rant

You're right, I am being a bit picky. Perhaps this is the evolution of a language, but I hope not. The last thing I'd like to see is the 'word' "rly" in a scientific journal or in a newspaper. In my opinion, this "degeneration" of the English language can be contributed to a much larger societal problem - laziness. I know I'm guilty of being lazy far too often, but it is something that I watch out for. Can you imagine how much we'd get done and how well things would work if we weren't so lazy? It boggles my mind.

Thanks to everyone for humouring me.

11/23/06 12:30

The Zach Attack

Posts: 0
Joined: 06/28/2006
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RE: The English Language - A Rant

It's not like it's a big deal, you know what they are saying clearly.
I myself don't use abbreviations much unless I'm tired, but you can understand it, nothing wrong with it.

Hittman With A Bow-Level 20 R/Mo, R/Me, R/W, R/N
Im Just That Good- Level 20 W/Mo, W/E, W/Me
Riana Lightbringer-Level 20 M/*
Riana The Ritualist-Level 20 Rt/Me
The Shadow Enigma-Level 20 N/Me
Open PvP Slot

11/23/06 12:43

Dark Knight

Posts: 16
Joined: 12/17/2005
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RE: The English Language - A Rant

I agree with you in esscence, but I do confess, in being the sort of youth you described. I will normally only use abbreviations if I'm wispering a close friend, or am doing something intense, but when on the forums I usually try to use my vocaublary and grammar to full effect.
I suppose using the abbreviations could become addicitve and/or could degrade my knowledge of the English language, but I don't think it does because I scarcely ever use such language when verbally communicating.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

This is my old account.

11/23/06 12:57

zOs

Posts: 0
Joined: 10/17/2005
Credibility: 0 pts

RE: The English Language - A Rant

I too find the recent 'creative uses' of language mindboggling. (I generalize here, since this 'degeneration' appears to be occurring in many other languages as well.) What puzzles me the most is that it does anything but facilitate communication...

Interestingly, some people seem to go so far as to mangle language to emphasize their 'l33tn355'. This concept (linguistically hard to justify, though seemingly generally accepted) seems to have gotten a new meaning in most contexts: the ability to cram as many mistakes as possible in a single word, while still managing to keep it somewhat recognizable. Truly a remarkable feat...

...but not something I like to read on a regular basis. And thankfully the visitors of these forums do not often leave me flabbergasted* with combinations of letters and numbers to decipher.

*: I simply had to use that word.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

11/23/06 13:04

Advocate

Posts: 1
Joined: 01/17/2006
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RE: The English Language - A Rant

Well met,

I understand your rant about the degeneration of english into almost a short hand language, I agree with it entirely but unfortunately it is the natural progression. The old 'our cool language only cool people can understand' aside, with so much of our lives now being dictated by time we might feel the need to 'speed' up our ability to write what we wish to say. It is not being lazy per se, but seeking the easiest way to do whichever task lays before us is like an inherent drive, be that writing in shorthand or inventing timesaving devices.

We will no doubt soon lose many words and letters (especially vowels which can be pronounced with inflection upon consonants) and end up with a character based writing much like chinese (many thousands of words created from a few thousand characters combined).

That'll make school fun :)

/returns to padded room

*edited for spelling, I hate bad spelling!

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

11/23/06 13:19

assasinator

Posts: 31
Joined: 08/29/2006
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RE: The English Language - A Rant

i dont really see the point in this thread, i mean "computer text" is just for typing quick messages to people on a keyboard, weird words like "guw, yim, ay, kidda, babz" that chavs use are something to rant about, not really short-internet text that people have used since internet communication was invented.

S0 pi3ce oUt !

Xfire: Nealc, GW IGN: on sig

11/23/06 13:21

dav3

Posts: 4
Joined: 11/11/2005
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RE: The English Language - A Rant

:O a teacher that plays on a pc =O

lol .. just kidding.

But anyways, i also find this quite anoying .. in the most part. I dont mind little ones that really do save a little bit of time like 'rly' or 'ppl' .. but some people are taking it a bit to far. Like 'wat', i mean it takes less than 1 second to put an 'h' in, so why leave it out?

But i also agree, maybe your getting to old for us young'uns :P

11/23/06 13:26

Carl Jenkins

Posts: 68
Joined: 09/13/2006
Credibility: 4 pts

RE: The English Language - A Rant

Everyone started using proper grammar and spelling all of a suddem. Just to appear as a person this rant was not aimed at >.>

My hidden talent is invisibility!

11/23/06 13:47

Solicity

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Joined: 02/08/2006
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RE: The English Language - A Rant

and i quote, from bash.org:

hi guyz how r u all doin???
Dear kasiserlord55,
Please stop raping me.
Love,
The English Language.

thought it was apropriate ^^.

as for me, its never really been a problem about speed. most of the time i do it to become familiar with other peoples acronyms so i can learn what they all mean and use them in context. i dont overabrieviate, i just use the common ones (lol, c u later, gtg, etc), mainly because everyone else around me uses them and its out of habbit.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

11/23/06 13:56

TheBeano

Posts: 9
Joined: 01/18/2006
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RE: The English Language - A Rant

QUOTE

Everyone started using proper grammar and spelling all of a suddem. Just to appear as a person this rant was not aimed at >.>

Interesting observation. Perhaps they feel guilty?

QUOTE

and i quote, from bash.org:

hi guyz how r u all doin???
Dear kasiserlord55,
Please stop raping me.
Love,
The English Language.

thought it was apropriate ^^.

It is indeed appropriate. Thanks... I had a good laugh.

Maybe I am getting too old...

I just think that if we need to speed things up so much that we have to create a newer, faster language, then there is something wrong. Maybe it's not laziness or maybe it is. Consider this: we are using abbreviations to speed up what we're trying to do because we don't have time to get everything done. Here is where the laziness comes in. Instead of trying to find ways to make our lifes less hectic and busy, we come up with ways we can pack more things into them. Again, this goes back to a societal problem that I know I'm mired in and I'm sure so many of you are. This is why I love GW so much - it gives me a chance to take my time and forget about all the other stuff in my life. That's why I'll never stop playing video games (even as a teacher) - they are an escape.

Now that I've been philosophical for today, I'll let the debate rage on.

Thanks everyone for your opinions.

11/23/06 14:38

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