Entertainment For Lively Minds
When do you give up rallying against the majority and give in e.g. correct punctuation in text messages?
Posted by Uncle Wheaty on 30 July 2009 - 1:01am.
I have never sent a text in a short form of the English language.
Am I a Luddite?
- More from Uncle Wheaty.
- Login or register to post comments
-
No u r not
I think it will gradually die off due to Iphones/smartphones with qwerty keyboards and good old predictive text. I think Txt Msging will soon be as arcane as Telegrams. Stop.
You are not alone
However, the numeric limitations inherent in Twittering means the shorthand will remain for the foreseeable.
Besides, do you imagine an entire generation will convert to typing in *more* than they are used to?
bllx
bllx
Vodafone's First Law...
The nearer I stray towards the inevitable depletion of my monthly text message allowance, th shrtr my txts bcm
No excuse since predictive text arrived
I can't stand text speak - but what really pisses me off is sensible, educated people using it in emails! It takes no more time to write "see you later" than "C U L8r" on a keyboard, so why would you want to come across like a slack-jawed 14 year old?
I'm sure there's plenty of
I'm sure there's plenty of us who'd love to come across a slack jawed 14-year-old.
Classy post there, Markie.
Markiechops' Gary Glitter was Right speech; is it the drunken ramblings of an otherwise reasonably decent person, or should we condemn him as a child molester for the next 35 years on the strength of these words?
I do hope you soon find a blood match...
...before it's too late for your irony transplant. It is quite flattering that you've found the strength to carry that grudge while you're waiting though.
That's better
A proportionate, gently mocking response, and bang on target - just the kind of banter we like. Not so hard after all, is it?
My work here is done.
If you've come back to read this...
...then it clearly isn't, is it?
No, that's me, markiechops.
Easy mistake to make at this distance.
like
ah, sorry; misread that.
My wife
Shortens words that are already short in text messages, sometimes to a single letter. It drives me mad having to reply 'Eh?' all the time. She sez she cnt us prdctiv tx.
MY wife
is an editor and is ultra-finicky about spelling, punctuation, syntax etc EXCEPT in text messages and emails which she doesn't edit at all.
I, on the other hand, insist on correct everything at all times (except when I admit to liking ELP)
I have never
used textspeak.
N@r
M!
I have never
sent a text message.
you just have
:-)
Sometimes, to be annoying...
I use semi-colons and colons in text messages.
Absolutely!
And quotation marks.
Let's be honest.. Unclewheaty is rather preaching to the converted here.
Cost
With predictive text it's actually quite hard to use txt spk so I don't (I make sure I put in all the full stops and commas as well). There is an excuse for using it though, once you hit the magic barrier (140 chars?) you get charged for another text which is probably more important to a 16 year old with a PAYG account than it is to me with 500 messages a month that I couldn't use if I tried.
Has predictive text improved, then?
I always used to find predictive text considerably more hindrance than help, so I haven't used it for years. When I did, I found it about as accurate and helpful as the average spell-checker or grammar-checker's suggestions.
Admittedly I tend to use basic PAYG phones, and the most recent one I've used would be a couple of years old.
Otherwise it's a case of horses for courses. I'm a lover of correct grammar, spelling and punctuation, but the medium of text, particularly if a rapid-fire exchange, doesn't always lend itself to meticulous sentence construction.
Textspeak anywhere other than in a medium with a character-length restriction seems just plain wrong to me, though.
Blackberry
text is fantastic and fast - more intuitive than predictive*.
Also email, and phone functions are miles better than Iphone which is one of the reasons I stick with Blackberry rather than the seductive Apple gadget.
*Seem to have read a report that most teens switch off predictive and use normal text -as their hyperactive thumbs can bang out a txt msg quicker that way.
Also leaves the other hand free for PSP3 or playing with themselves - or,like,wevs yeah?
I predict a
huge rise in thumb related arthritis in the years to come. To think, opposable thumbs have come to this.
Thy hv txt msgng n Afghnstn 2 u no
so dnt giv th Tlbn ny ideas bout thmbs or thyll hk m off ppl.
and have you seen the state of the
pavements....the was costmonger's sign in the market "asparagu's" indeed...the state of spoons these days... they've elected a greyhound in luton you know.
I can't see the problem if both parties understand the conversation and I bet people here have used A.S.A.P or R.S.V.P these are just "text" speak. Just like BBC or ITV as long as you can understand them what's the problem.
Have to disagree
ASAP and RSVP have been around for a very long time so I wouldn't lump them in with textspeak. I use the occasional abbreviation in my texts (like "yr" instead of "your" or you're"), but generally I use "proper" English, including apostrophes and, yes, even the odd semi-colon. Full-on textspeak looks so damn ugly doesn't it?
but they are example of acronyms
that have entered the language and stand in for the actual phrase themselves. I believe people have even turned RSVP into a verb ie "has anyone RSVP'ed yet to our wedding invite"
Difficult enough
in English but i get mine in 3 languages. Every seen these text things in Spanish and Czech. might as well be in Klingon.
I have a colleague in India
who uses txtspeak in communicator messages (on-line messaging)- always seems incongruous with the rest of her speech. she also writes 'Hur Hur LOL' when she expresses humour - odd.
someone used an smiley emoticon
on an internal snail mail envelope at work the other day next someone's name even i thought thta was odd. I avoid :-) at work generally.
The messaging medium in my organisation permits 'emoticons'
with the usual 'smileys' but permits imported images including animated .gif files.
Mine include 'Banging head against wall', 'Sh@t hitting fan', 'Cat chasing its own tail' , '3D Smiley character trashing PC' etc.
They have their uses.
No doubt my history is available on a server somewhere.............
2b or not 2b
I'm with Chris G - all forms of langugae evolve and mutate.
I share many of "modern life/music/sex symbols/telly/comics/toys is rubbish" sentiments but take comfort that Shakespeare and Wodehouse will still be being read until the close of time.
Shakespeare in txt msg - now there's a comedy sketch idea...
I think this was on one of the Word emails:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2008/7/30schmelling.html
Not quite txtspk, but I still quite funny.
My mobile
does not have a ' therefore I cant spell correctly. Dont it drive you mad.
I blame Primal Scream
They started it, calling an album XTRMNTR.
I never use textspeak if I can possibly help it, and it irritates me that friends old enough to know better do. For instance, I regularly get a text that says "UP41L8R?" This is actually an invitation to go the pub, despite looking like a postcode.
However, I do use Teeline shorthand, which uses similar principles to textspeak - ie miss out all the vowels.
It would be great to see textspeak die out with the advent of QWERTY keypads on smartphones but I think it's already taken root.
I agree with Chris G above.
Far too many people have glommed on to this Eats Shoots and Leaves thing of pretending to be exasperated by missing apostrophes etc.
Your own spelling and grammar perfect, is it? Are you sure? Absolutely sure? Because there's always some arcane rule to prove you wrong, you know...
Eats, Shoots etc
I know what you're saying. And it's really not healthy to pick up individuals on their erroneous apostrophe use, etc, etc. But standards are getting worse and worse because more and more people are misusing punctuation such as this; and because we're not allowed to pick anyone up on it - it's inappropriate - more and more people think it's ok.
My punctuation and sentence construction ain't perfect. But I'm genuinely interested, rather than offended, if it's pointed out to me, for example, that "none of us is" is correct while "none of us are" isn't.
I agree
But ask that we consider the fact that 1.) We all live in glass houses, and 2.) Guitar shops are full of assistants who can play the guitar to an exceptionally high standard, very few of whom are Johnny Marr.
I had a conversation with my teenage daughter once...
...which reminds me of this one. Her opinion was that I should just get over the fact that she was growing up and accept it. My point was that, as a parent, I was still allowed to bemoan the loss of something; in her case, childhood.
Language is being devalued. Despite accepting that change defines language, I am experiencing regret and sorrow at what is being lost.
Horses For Courses
As long as I don't have to read Newspapers or Novels in txtspeak, I don't mind.
(Try reading a whole chapter of 'Cloud Atlas' in wierd dialect/pidgin -unspeakable)
Predictive texting
could never get it to work - spent more time trying to select correct word than banging out the txt msg. Also if you have a character limit for a txt msg - y wst tme typng out whle msg ?
sure Shakespeare would have approved of texting and twitter !
It's all Greek to me.
I had to borrow someone elses phone to send some text messages last week and it was a nightmare trying to text without predictive set to on (I didn't want to change any settings). You have to press the buttons soooo many times! It may be faster for the message sender to use text speak (if they can't, or don't want to, use predictive but it normally takes twice as long to the recipient to decipher it!
or just send short mssgs?
the iPhone
inserts correct punctuation for you. Type youre, and you'll get you're.
Youv'e got to agree, thats' brilliant
but
does it correct you when you type 'your' and you actually mean 'you're'...
now that would be cool...
It should have an extra feature
that highlights irony, for those who don't spot it
And in order to indicate, in a light-hearted and concise way, that my intentions in this comment are merely to amuse, might I add :-)
?
I expect it's possible to investigate the limits of
its ability, and to find errors that are the people who designed it's fault.
the overpriced iphone
When you pay umpteeen hundred quid for one or a contract - I would expect it to do this and make the tea - you what - tea maker can be bought in the apple apps store !!!!
ah but can it cope
wi' full on t'yorkshire I wuz goin' darn tarn ta see mi dad w'me mam and are young'n....
You should be askin'
a certain Mr Hepworth lad. Aye.
predictive text
Is only any use if you can spell in the first place hence, for most of the clodwits out there, it remains turned off and the dreadful bastardisation which is "textspeak" continues to proliferate.
this thread has some of the most sanctimonious old crap...
... i've ever read on the word website
txts are useful
predictive txt is a pain in the arse
anyone boasting about how "i've never sent a txt message" in 2009 should get out (of their mental silo) more...
From the mental silo:
Are you going to buy me a mobile, then, Glen?
( :-)
Still boasting, I suppose...
quick look at the orange website and ...
... a few pay as you go handsets for £9.50, then £10 top up for total price of £19.50 for a basic new working phone ... not exactly megabucks, is it? then again, given the number of mobiles kicking about the UK now (knocking of for two per user) one of your mates doubtless has a spare - stick a free SIM in it, load up the minimum top up and off you go ...
:-)
Time to confess
Conscience has got the better of me, so I feel I must admit that I was being somewhat economical with the truth when I implied that I didn't own a mobile. (I stand by my earlier claim never to have sent a text message, however, since that is true.)
I do have a PAYG mobile that lives in the car - my mum insisted I have her old one, in case of emergency/breakdown when I'm out and about with my grand-daughter. My ambition is never to have to use it other than for the occasional quick call, which I believe is necessary to keep it viable.
As for the cost - the price you quote is roughly 20% of my net weekly income, and I feel a landline - which I do use - is a good deal more useful to me. There are other things I'd far rather spend my money on than being 'connected' the whole time - I just don't see the need for that. And texting is, for me, a game I've no interest in playing. Rather like golf.
By the way, who are these "mates" you refer to? ( :-)
Language evolution begins as incorrectness
Just as biological evolution begins with a genetic mutation, so every tiny step in the evolution of language begins as something incorrect or sloppy. Anything new in language starts off being wrong - maybe a word that's not in the dictionary, or a way of phrasing a sentence that breaks current rules of grammar.
And just like biological evolution, only time can tell if the incorrectness is the first step in an evolution of the language or an evolutionary dead end - a temporary piece of incorrectness that dies out.
I recently caused a family rift by pointing out a misplaced apostrophe on the card accompanying funeral flowers, so I'm probably the last person who should comment, but we should really temper our striving for correctness with an acceptance of the inevitability of change. Beware ending up like Philip Howard in his 1977 book "New Words For Old". There he expressed (many times) the view that language is bound to evolve, and we shouldn't try to hold back that tide, but every single example he cited received his utter condemnation.
A bit like saying "I'm not a racist, I just happen to hate every non-white person I've ever met".
I agree Lucky
but would like to to add the caveat that there does need to be break on the evolution so that some semblance of understanding is maintained. Also I am happy for adults to talk/text however they like but we should give children a range of ways of expressing themselves. I can choose to drop text speak or slang into my speech and I regulalrly talk with my oldest friend in the yorkshire dialect of our youth (because it's the best way of trading insults!), but do fear for children who can only express themselves one way.
There is a danger though
of slipping into the 'Google (or technology of your choice) is responsible for dumbing-down' argument.
There is clearly an underlying fear that in shortening or substituting words, that somehow accepted or traditional English will become a thing of the past, either in speech or written form.
This is based on an assumption that there is one way of speaking and writing English and that no other will do.
Communication is supposedly a two-way activity, but academics and business people basically say do it our way or not at all. Conventional English is based on a set of cues and is also contextualised.
Text-speak has no context to the outsider.
I don't expect the majority of texters to write novels, but I am glad they are writing something, even in shorthand. There has to be some thought before writing, even if the vocabulary is limited or reduced to a set of macros or gestures.
loads of interesting points here...
1. 'business speak' for instance tends to be a set of off the shelf phrases that can be used to put a veneer of professional respectability over a series of pretty straightforward actions (or in extremis to bodyswerve past difficult subjects like cuts and redundancies) ... in itself, it's risible
2. language does 'mutate' and the fascinating thing about the casual use of english in email and txts is how quickly it has happened, how nuanced it can be, and how reflexively satirical (the use of LOL without implied quotation marks seems to be age-related) ... or if the Word hoovered up all the advertising revenue for music magazines, the ad manager might legitimately say, also with a sense of irony, 'all your ad revenue are belong to us' .. why? see the wikipedia entry below
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us
same with 'in your base, killing your dudes' ('in your database, stealing your advertisers'?)
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/I_am_in_your_base_killing_you...
3. the Word already has its specialist lexicon with 'the sound of young Islington', 'wrongity wrong', 'FPO' etc - so it's strange to see people getting into a fankle over the use of a word like rotflcopters ...
4. and yes, might die out but it's fun in the meantime
I don't wear fine attire with a fresh, red carnation every day,
but all my texts take the form of full sentences. I am not in the position to have my own tailor but I can begin proper nouns with capital letters and I try my best to put apostrophes in the right places. When I make the occasional error it is because I am still learning the language. It's the only one I've got and I see its use as craft. I'm sure the dapper gentleman occasionally scuffs his shoes. I keep to the English of reference books because the maximum number of readers should be able to understand it. Teenagers are communicating with a different target audience. I'm sure they have other factors to consider: speed, cost, acceptance, fashion, creativity. I expect text-speak will have the same long-term impact upon the English language as Jazz Age slang does. TTFN.
This Government has spent a small fortune on adult literacy
so they believe that spelling is important. Poor standards of English and maths cost the UK economy a large fortune every year. People are judged by their inability to spell (amongst other things) according to their current salary. Lower quartile: thick and/or lazy. Second quartile: mediocre. Third quartile: that just shows how unimportant good spelling is. Fourth quartile: my secretary does all that. Schoolchildren have all this to look forward to.
I hate to be a git, but..
It says in the FAQs that "criticising posts for grammatical and spelling errors is considered bad form."
But.. Those who live in glass houses, etc..
One does not rally against. One rails against.
http://www.answers.com/topic/rail-against
Wrongity wrong
Both rail against and rally against are acceptable phrases.
It depends UNCLEWHEATY can I call you Unk
If you are rallying troops in your battle against TXT SPCH that is your battalions of grammarians and lexiographers have been scatterd by the forces of LOL, ROLF and indeed Pwned and you need to regroup or if your railing that is standing outside in the cold using insolent and reproachful language;or indeed scoffing at or against the TXTRS. :-)
I didn't like to say anything
but I've never rallied against poor grammar - never gone to Trafalgar Square to watch Billy Bragg and Noam Chomsky swing their megaphones in a call for a ban on dangling participles, for example.
I've often railed against such things, usually privately, or to my long-suffering eye-rolling colleagues.
Perfectly summarised
I was indeed making reference to myself and many other grammarians and hence used the term rallying.
My Dear Old Dad
Not to further this discussion, but to celebrate my late father's passion for good English... He arrived in England in the 1930s as a hasty refugee, and had to learn English very fast to survive. Having gone to that trouble, he was absolutely unforgiving of those who have it as their mother tongue and don't use it properly.
To our teenage embarrassment (but retrospective delight) he would gently and politely correct language misuse by complete strangers, e.g.
Lady in shop: "And that's one pence change"
Dad: "One penny change. 'Pence' is the plural."
Never give up...
I always use correct grammar and punctuation in my text messages. I also pretend not to understand every time I receive a text message that is badly written, which often forces the sender to waste another message explaining what they meant.
I maintain that this course of action will eventually bring one of the following results: either my friends' texting/writing skills will improve, or I will end up with no friends. Either way, I won't have to put up with bad grammar...