tollie.org/blog thoughts and reflections of Tollie Williams

Grammar Evolution or Why do we teach 3rd graders cursive?

RE: This Times Daily article.

I wish this light news story had balance. Does it really matter to the reader that author of this piece used the incorrect plurality of "is" following the participle phrase? Of course not. Why? Because the author's words communicated her message.

This is the point of texting. We (those under 30) aren't writing incorrectly; we are evolving the English language.

Back to balance: Surely there are those who disagree with Mr. Warren, who says that "cursive writing is always going to be a needed skill." If Mr. Warren, who is the secondary curriculum director for Florence schools, really believes that all third graders should be taught cursive because they might end up being postal carriers then - I need not elaborate. Perhaps that time would be better spent teaching them the fundamentals of digital messaging. If the postal service is still around when they graduate high school in 10 years, then they can earn their technical degree in Cursive Writing.

"Text language" as it's being referred to here is the result of necessity and creativity. Previously, when typing was the bottleneck to electronic communication, acronyms like LOL and AFK (Away From Keyboard) were used to keep the conversation moving at quick pace. Now, the limited space of SMS messages is the driving force behind even more abbreviations.

Yes, crafting these abbreviations requires some degree of creativity and is an art. For instance, take <3 which stands for "love." (It's a sideways heart). Because <3 is easier to type than "love", in some contexts <3 may be pronounced as "heart" and is used more playfully than the more formal "love" would.

None of this should be confused with 1337 speak ("leet", short for elite), which is a more personalized slang used primarily for distinction in a text-only environment. In l337 speak, numbers are substituted for letters not based on their sound (2 for "to"), but on their proximity in appearance (7 for T, 3 for E, 4 for A, etc). It also has evolved to include the use of irregular capitalization and extraneous punctuation. (eg. ~*!* mY!coOOL!w3bP4g3 *!*~) It is an art - subjective for sure - but an art.

Again, the meaning of language is communication, and texting is resulting in many clever ways to communicate more with less. I wish the article would have reflected some of these points for a more balanced view.

Oh, by the way. The grammar rule violated that I referred to earlier? "[T]he vast amount of cell phone text-based abbreviated communications teens use is showing up in more formal writing." Ignoring the phrases, we are left with "The vast amount is showing," and of course, vast amount would imply plurality, thus necessitating "are" rather than "is."

However, let's solve the problem another way:

via PewInternet.org - Txt abbrvtions being used in formal writing.

74 characters. That leaves us roughly 70 characters to comment on the quote and link to the report. Perfect.

Grace and Peace,
- tollie
www.tollie.org

PS. The Pew report that the July 16, 2009 Times Daily article cited as "recent" is dated April 24, 2008 and the data used was published November 16, 2007.