Language - the latest casualty of dumbing down our education system
I don't mean to shock anyone but I think it's time for a War on Grammar and Spelling and by that I mean bad grammar and bad spelling. Text talk - Lik 4get bo 4eva + myb l8r 2moro i cu - is getting out of control and will destroy Western civilisation as we know it.
Quoting Hamlet ends up being "2b r nt 2b?" But what is even more scary is that university students are not writing "to be or not to be" they are text-message writing.
According to the Irish State Examination Commission
Text messaging, with its use of phonetic spelling and little or no punctuation, seems to pose a threat to traditional conventions in writing. The report laments that, in many cases, candidates seemed "unduly reliant on short sentences, simple tenses and a limited vocabulary."
Well no shit Sherlock. Text talk has infiltrated our lives. I hated "niteclub" back in the day. It is no wonder that students in university are illiterate despite a tolerable education system. However bad it is in Ireland, I cringe at the latest from the UK, which is the brain fart of a university professor. The Indo has this:
The project will send text message quotations and plot summaries of seven works, from Milton's Paradise Lost to William Golding's Lord of the Flies, to mobile phones to act as an aide-memoire for undergraduates.
The mobile phone company behind the scheme yesterday denied it was guilty of a poetry-crushing gimmick. Instead, Dot mobile, a service for students, pointed out that its messages were devised by the media-savvy academic, John Sutherland, emeritus professor of modern English literature at University College London.
Shame sir! How do you expect student to get a first class honours degree in English if they summarise the plot for Pride and Prejudice as follows
Quoting Hamlet ends up being "2b r nt 2b?" But what is even more scary is that university students are not writing "to be or not to be" they are text-message writing.
According to the Irish State Examination Commission
Text messaging, with its use of phonetic spelling and little or no punctuation, seems to pose a threat to traditional conventions in writing. The report laments that, in many cases, candidates seemed "unduly reliant on short sentences, simple tenses and a limited vocabulary."
Well no shit Sherlock. Text talk has infiltrated our lives. I hated "niteclub" back in the day. It is no wonder that students in university are illiterate despite a tolerable education system. However bad it is in Ireland, I cringe at the latest from the UK, which is the brain fart of a university professor. The Indo has this:
The project will send text message quotations and plot summaries of seven works, from Milton's Paradise Lost to William Golding's Lord of the Flies, to mobile phones to act as an aide-memoire for undergraduates.
The mobile phone company behind the scheme yesterday denied it was guilty of a poetry-crushing gimmick. Instead, Dot mobile, a service for students, pointed out that its messages were devised by the media-savvy academic, John Sutherland, emeritus professor of modern English literature at University College London.
Shame sir! How do you expect student to get a first class honours degree in English if they summarise the plot for Pride and Prejudice as follows
5SistrsWntngHsbnds.NwMenInTwn-Bingly&Darcy Fit&Loadd.BigSisJaneFals4B,2ndSisLizH8sDCozHesProud. SlimySoljrWikamSysDHsShadyPast. TrnsOutHesActulyARlyNysGuy&RlyFancysLiz. SheDecydsSheLyksHim.Evry1GtsMaryd
I abhor text talk. It disgusts me to read it and I don't care that that makes me horribly conservative. Correct grammar and spelling are necessary for a good job. Besides the point of reading works of literature is to revel in the words, wrap yourself in the sensuality of language, engage with simile, metaphor and onomatopoeia.
Shakespeare is not a "whodunit" or "romance". It is not about finding out that the prince is power mad and wants the throne or that Romeo loved her from the moment he saw her. Those are elements to literature but it is more than the some of its parts. Language itself is a character, who is slowly being killed off by a villain that favours brevity.
I abhor text talk. It disgusts me to read it and I don't care that that makes me horribly conservative. Correct grammar and spelling are necessary for a good job. Besides the point of reading works of literature is to revel in the words, wrap yourself in the sensuality of language, engage with simile, metaphor and onomatopoeia.
Shakespeare is not a "whodunit" or "romance". It is not about finding out that the prince is power mad and wants the throne or that Romeo loved her from the moment he saw her. Those are elements to literature but it is more than the some of its parts. Language itself is a character, who is slowly being killed off by a villain that favours brevity.
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