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Txt ok & ‘wont hrt kids’
Remember when I looked into the increasing use of SMS language recently? Well, the plot thickens. A recent University of Toronto study says that using text slang will not hinder kids’ linguistic development, but rather presents an “expansive new linguistic renaissance”.
Hmmm, I’m not so sure about that. While SMS abbreviations may not statistically harm developing grammar skills, I don’t think they have signified leaps and bounds in the development of the English language, but rather encouraged a certain amount of laziness. Any thoughts?
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© 2008 Miss-Verständnis. 
English speakers worried about texting and grammar? Why bother?
English has pathetic pronunciation rules. The spelling rules are just as bad.
Why bother worry about texting and ignore these two horrid topics.
CU L8R M8 might as well be proper English as far as I am concerned.
Language is a “liquid” medium, always in motion, evolving and changing - its written form is a mere appendix. Knowing how to “properly” write is a modern day economic necessity because it facilitates national communication among people who speak various local variations - VERY important in Germany.
How different is NZ English in Auckland from Dunedin’s? I bet it’s not as much of a difference as German variations/dialects in Hamburg, Leipzig, Köln and Munich!
But: What unites these places? A written, standard, language.
Written language is never natural language, it always comes in a stylised form, chosen for convenient reasons, mostly as an enhanced method of information transfer. And that is what’s important about it.
Which is to say, as long as everybody commands the standard form I could not care less in what kind of slang or jargon one converses with his/her friends.
@Frost: I’m sorry you feel that way! I guess my point is that we should preserve and foster awareness of what’s left of our language traditions than throw them out the window.
@42317: How eloquent! This is exactly my point. There is nothing wrong with using text-speak or slang when it is appropriate, as long as one knows how to spell/use grammar/choose words correctly etc. I kind of equate it with the table manners thing. Namely, when I was young, my mum (that’s what we call a mother in NZ) would say “sit up straight, hold your knife and fork correctly, don’t put your elbows on the table” (and so on). I would whine “aw but nobody’s here to see, why bother using good manners?”. She’d say “if you don’t practise table manners now, you won’t know how to use them when you eat out at a fancy restaurant.” Which is true of language. If you’re not taught to use the language correctly, because “It’s ok to use text language” and there’s no real need to use formal English, the danger is that you might not be able to speak/write properly when it is required of you. And that is my rant of the day. Thanks for listening.