tspikes51

A majority of Americans use Internet forums, chat rooms, and instant messaging almost daily, and what a wonderful thing they are, but at what cost do these come? The abilities of the average American to use written American English have, in my opinion, been on a decline for quite some time now, resulting in a lack of understandability. Formal English is not there just to look pretty, it is there to standardize the language to make it easier to understand. I can understand somebody using abbreviations, phonetic spellings, written dialogues, and such (sometimes to the point where intelligible English is at a complete lack) in an instant message or chat room, much like using informal spoken English in a conversation. The problem arises, however, when this transfers into peoples' speech and writing where they are attempting to communicate with a person who doesn't use those sorts of things. I talk to people quite often that will not only not understand some words that I am using, but just aren't able to understand what I mean because I put my words together in a somewhat correct form. Part of this is to blame on our educational system, where our schools now fail to teach proper grammar and prose to students. I am a freshman in college at the moment, and most of my classmates would write in a paper, for example, "he did it good." In any Romance language (Spanish, French, Romanian, Portuguese, Italian), this would not even mean the same thing as "he did it well", or even be grammatically possible. Our language is taking on evolution for the worse. I only hope that we can revive it.

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MageB420666

That is how language adapts, you notice that we no longer use words such as "thy" and "thee". Language evolves through the common tongue.

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tspikes51

There is a difference between antiquation (is that a word?) and evolution. The dropping of words in common use isn't a complete overhaul of the language. What I am talking about is on a much larger scale than a couple words.

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"I'm telling you, we need to get rid of a few people or a million."
-Maddox

rainheart

A language is just an agreement in terms between the people speaking it. We define it, there's no right or wrong or good or bad or better or worse about it- if "he did it good" was correct grammer, then imagine how absurd "he did it well" would sound to you.

Zeld2.0

Putting words into antiquity and evolution are pretty much teh same. Dropping a few words isn't a complete overhaul, thats true. But it is part of that complete overhaul. And in the old days, people didn't simply not use 'thy' and 'thee' - completely different words, sayings, and pronunciations (bad spelling i know, but its late) were used.

A hundred years ago, even, what is common language would sound very different from today. Heck, go back 50 years, and even that is different in many aspects.

As you get closer in years, there is less of a difference but language evolves bit by bit, not in huge sudden changes.

Rlyss

I think one of the biggest things people are worried about is the decline of the English language in its ability to effectively describe things, events, feelings, abstract concepts, etc. We don't use 'thee' anymore, in the future I think 'gonna' will be a proper word, and (sadly), perhaps even 'could of' will become accepted use.

I think the worry is that the overall quality of the teaching of English is declining, so that in the next few generations people won't have the vocabulary to describe things as well as we used to. We take the easy way out, we use spell-checkers and grammar checkers, or we just expect (correctly) that other people will understand because it's 'just' an online conversation, and it'd be ridiculous to assume that people should put so much effort into communicating properly. But I think the real danger is that if we rely so much on shortcuts, we'll gradually lose our ability to describe and talk poetically, with great detail and with romance and with humor and wit and everything that makes the 'classic' novel a 'classic'.

"Man I feel like shit my gf is a bitch and the other day we got into a fight about how she wanted to see her friends and she said I'm holding her back what do i do?!???"
"

Language change and evolution is good, but I think we have to try (becase it's hard!) to distinguish what is being <b>a)</b> left out and dropped along the way because it's archaic, and we then have ways of replacing that, and <b>b)</b> what is being left out because we're lazy, and don't want to really put effort into our speech. Our ways of communicating will be negatively affected, and on the extreme end we'll end up communicating in grunts again! Well, obviously we won't go that far, but I do worry (because I'm weird) that we won't be able to speak with the eloquence and effectiveness and the efficiency that we could in the past. (And I realize the irony, considering my essay-size responses on the TFP!)

The problem is that when such a large amount of your typing is online communication, and the shorthand is used, the likelihood of that dominating your speech, I think, is pretty high. I don't think the SMS-speak (c u l8r m8, r u cumin 2 da show tnite?, etc) will overwhelm us, but things like 'he did it good', 'gonna', 'could of', 'definately', etc. will probably come into common usage.

lurkette

My concern is less about the evolution of language - it's inevitable and there are plenty of examples of things that in olden days were looked on as something shocking - than about the class division that's going to be marked by an inability to use standard English. I have no problem with people using words like "gonna" and other informalisms as long as it's contex-appropriate. But when you're unable to switch out of an informal context it marks you as ignorant. It's kind of like a musician learning all the classical rules of music so they can then go break them playing wild improvisatory jazz. You learn the whole toolbox, and then you can choose the tool that's appropriate. If all you've got is a hammer, you're going to be seriously limited in how you can apply it.

I'm gonna quit now before I come up with another dumb metaphor.

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Rlyss

I guess that's sort of what I was saying too, lurkette. Similar, at least. Learning the 'minimum', being taught (or learning, I suppose there can be a difference*) is only going to get people so far. It's a shame on so many levels. People are (presumably) going to be less and less likely to convey what they really feel, speak eloquently, etc., and as time goes on people are going to have a hard time talking without emoticons. This sort of stuff fascinates me.

It reminds me of that question about how language evolved. Do we really think in our first language? Or is it instinct that is then conveniently put into words once we learn language? If a baby can't speak, can it think as well as we can? Can an adult who has never learned a language really think as well, or on the same level, as someone who is fluent in a language?

* I put an asterisk here because I'm unsure of the definition of 'taught'. If you teach someone something, do they have to then understand it? Can I teach math to a class, and if they all fail, have I taught? Is the act judged by its success?

tspikes51

Good. I'm not the only one who thinks that our language should be preserved somewhat. "Thee" and "thy" are not forgotten, they are only less commonplace now than 400 years ago.

Those essay-sized responses were more effective than a shorter response because of the clarity they provided to the reader. A much shorter response would have been less clear, therefore taking more time, effort, and risk of misunderstanding on the reader's part.

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-Maddox

roachboy

i dont know quite how to respond to the opening post, because the complaint could be levelled against experimental literature as easily as it could be against various ways in which spoken and written english blur into each other.
or it could be a complaint about the education system, but it is not one that is set up to be coherent on the matter, so it remains simply a complaint. to which one can say yes yes or no no, but no real discussion can ensure.

for myself, i do not usually pay any attention to arguments for accessibility.
i simply do and engage with forms of experimentation that interest me.
if others do not like it, they do not have to play along.
i do not take objections to the work of a poet like susan howe seriously that start off with "i don't understand what she is saying, why is this not in plain english, and why is it poetry it does not rhyme..."
i find that i assume the person making that objection to be an idiot.
this of course may not be the best way to react, but there we are.

as for interpenetrations of spoken and written english, trying to stop it is like king lear's project--except maybe a bit more vociferous.
you could argue that this interpenetration increases the precision of the language in a given social space, fits it more readily to a particular mode of experience, and, conversely, that "standard" english is about denying modes of experience and making the language less precise by making it less flexible.

language changes. it is constantly bent in and through the histories of the people who interact with it and with their world through it. the bending of language is a feature of its historicity. this makes some folk nervous, it seems.

so they stomp a foot and declare, in the name of some fictional standard of correctness, that this is the kind of thing up with which i shall not put.

have fun sitting in your lawn chair at the ocean's edge, railing against the waves.
i am sure you'll make a fine snapshot for someone.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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william

The loss of the proper usage of the language is inevitable. A few years ago, it was mandatory to understand how to use the language. That is no longer so. It is no longer required that immigrants learn the language, and why should they when it is not taught to our students? In California they have their own sub-language called ebonics. Why? Because they will not teach students the proper usage of English. I guess it is too difficult (or something). But the days of having self-pride to learn the language of the country you live in are gone.
Contradictory to what immigrants think in our country, in other countries you have[B] to know the native language to get along (except in the bigger cities, or around military bases - in limited terms). The internet age is not helping either. Everyone thinks they have to live in such a fast-paced way, they want to abbreviate everything.

tspikes51

We have a standard "dialect" for English in America that everyone living here should be able to use fluently, so that the information being communicated is more precisely and quickly understood. It has nothing to do with artistic experimentation, because they (meaning the people who use this "netspeak") are not consciously trying to change the basic form of the language in order to get any effect. Instead, they are unconsciously condensing the language to a more mindless form. It is in essence taking away the thought that goes into writing or speaking. Standards are there to make things more convenient and efficient. If we were just adding words and phrases into the language, rather than dumbing it down, it would be a different story. I am not in any way opposed to change, but some things should never be forgotten.

__________________
"I'm telling you, we need to get rid of a few people or a million."
-Maddox

Swirlie

Great argument - however your lack of proper grammar, sentence structure and capitalization pretty much blows your credibility.

Paradise Lost

Ahahaha... Nice .

Hell, I can't even remember the last time I have ever used a spellchecker.
Ever since I started playing MUDs I have felt the need to type really well -
this usually translates, for me anyways, to speak really well too. I'm never
really over-ponderous, but I'm usually never light on words either.

I find it sad that even in most books that have been published after 1970
have simple, small paragraphs, simple writing, and hardly any eloquent prose.
Even history books written Pre-1900s have a good amount of prose to tell
the events taking place. It just seems that anything written today is geared
so that you only have to have an IQ of 20 and maybe a 3rd grade reading
level. It's pretty sickening. I was in an HONORS English program in my
senior year, and, not joking, half the people their couldn't even answer
the most remedial questions about books like 1984, or Brave New World,
among others.

People just don't seem to have a clue, nor even care for that matter.

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Stiltzkin

I guess I don't understand what "he did it good" means, because in Spanish you can easily say "lo hizo bien". What bothers me is that people who make grammatical errors usually do it only because they don't know any better, and are unaware that they are doing anything wrong. This is bad, very bad. The worst grammatical error for me to come across is the use of "your" instead of "you're". If I'm reading something and I come across this error, I literally have to stop and tell myself that the person who wrote this is probably a very decent person, and I would probably like them if I got to known them, it is just that they don't know any better; that's all.

Damn good argument!!! I've never seen anyone defend bad grammar like that before ^^. Anyways, I would have to agree with roachboy here, unfortunately... ^^; Now the question arises: if the grammar is bad, does that make the content less worthwhile? I don't think so. Bad grammar can be condoned--well I condone it--if the content is worthwhile.

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viejo gringo

If you really want to see bad grammer and bad spelling...just read our
local newspaper, the Monitor. There are times that I have to read a
sentence several time just to figure out what they mean....and some of the
misspelling is in the the large headers..

Maybe I just need to read it with a spanish accent..

Stiltzkin

Pardon me but... LOL!

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MSD

The Internet makes people stupid. At one point, my brother actually had his buddy list separated into "Buddies" and "No Speak English." I know plenty of smart people who have started using AIM and the Internet, then slowly lost their knack for proper use of the English language. I don't capitalize when I talk to friends over various instant messaging programs, I rarely capitalize in IRC, I rarely use punctuation, yet I make sure that I don't let that kind of stuff slip into my vocabulary and normal writing.

gondath

I'd have to agree that the current evolution of the English language is more like de-evolution. People aren't changing it because they are trying to improve communication. The vast majority of them fail to use proper grammar and spelling because they are ignorant. The people who do know the difference and still choose not to are just being lazy. I would have to say the largest contributor to this decline is cultural. By cultural, I don't just mean that it comes about from habits and being surrounded by people who do the same. I mean the American culture does not, as a whole, value communication, especially in the form of language. I've heard many people defend their ignorance by saying how is English going to help me get a job or make money? Mmoney is the great motivator in most peoples' lives here. Look how horrible business jargon has become in the last twenty years. Instead of shorting the phrases as in netspeak, it actually multiplies them. Teachers are not to blame. They cannot teach what someone does not want to learn. The kids do not value English and neither do their parents. If they did, they would bother to learn it properly. Then of course we have the ever popular music industry that makes it cool to use excessive slang. The bastardization of English will probably continue until we can barely understand each other. Then maybe people will figure out why clear communication is actually important.

warrrreagl

Standardized testing usually computes some sort of "linguistic" score as part of its results. Therefore, we are used to equating a command of the English language as being synonymous with high intelligence. The ACT, for example, is basically a math and English test. The same for SAT, ITBS, etc., etc.

As American schools seem to be on the downslide, it's very convenient to point out a decline in English as symptomatic of the general destruction of American society from within. And also, it's easy to suggest that returning to the basic old "readin', ritin', and rithmetic" would be the way to stop the bleeding.

Read Howard Gardner, and his creation of a testing instrument that measures eight different types of human intelligence (not just two). According to him, every human on the planet exists some level of intelligence in linguistic skills, math skills, music skills, spatial-reasoning skills, body-kinesthetic skills, interpersonal skills, intrapersonal skills, and naturalistic skills. Each person's skill "persona" could be represented by a unique peak-meter (similar to a stereo EQ display). A lawyer, for example, would have high linguistic and interpersonal skills. A carpenter would have high math, body-kinesthetic, and spatial-reasoning skills.

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Cynthetiq

sometimes technology assists the evolution... Æ, Ð, and þ from old english or icelandic weren't availble to most type setters. So they just winged it.... resulting in many common changes to words.

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analog

The internet and its various messaging capabilities are not bringing about a revolution of speech, as some of you are liking to call it. I think what's being referred to here is the way that we are being lazy when we chat casually- tossing capitalizations, spelling, and grammar to the four winds. Just in this thread alone, there are two instances of people arguing over the degredation of the english language who have dropped the easy-out "(sp?)" or the like into their sentence, for lack of want to simply look it up. If you submitted a proper document to any professional with a word misspelled and a (sp?) next to it, you would find yourself on the other side of mockery- yet this seems to take place more than you think. College professors and high school teachers are battling this on the front lines, trying desperately to regain control over a language at the mercy of lazy, horny, socially active teenagers. Those who are older are simply falling prey to the way others speak in chat rooms, instant messaging, etc., and the spread of such practices is scary, at the least.

Why can't people write properly? Why do you have to shortcut everything? Most of you in the chat rooms and IM's can already type with great speed and accuracy, so it's not a time-saving thing... so what is it?

Thee and thy dropped out of favor over a course of time... this is much different than some kid wandering into chat and saying, "hey doodz wuts up 2nite? never seen so many ppl in chat b4!!111 lol omgwtfbbq!"

roachboy

analog:
(only some of this is directed at your post, but it is a conveninent place to jump out)

you do not take into account that email and boards like this are developing into a particular genre of writing, with particular assumptions about voice and conventions for expression.
they are, in general, more speech-dominated spaces.
to approximate speech cadences, people simplify or adapt grammar rules that they would adhere to if the genre-space they were writing in was more formal.

that people adapt their mode of writing to different spaces does not at all mean that there is any degradation--it means, rather, that the spaces for deploying english are diversifying.

conversely it makes no sense to assume that you can make judgements about how people write in a more formal space from how they write here.


for what it's worth, i write here in a mode that is closer to email because it helps keep the writing (and my persona) away from a more formal mode, which i use (and teach) in my everyday life.

i do not like capital letters, so here i do not use them.
i remember reading an article by lazlo moholy-nagy, written when he ran the typography workshop at the bauhaus, about the non-functionality of caps in most european languages--i thought he was right--and i simply like the way lines of text look without caps breaking it up.

to compensate for the effects of not using caps, i use dashes or spaces to seperate clauses/sentences.

the typographic usage keeps this space more informal, more like talking--in addition, i simplify my grammar, experimenting with ways to create speech rhythms in this space that are different from how i actually talk.

different genres=the possibility for different kinds of games to be played.
nothing about it is necessarily an index of deterioration.

the matter of experimental literature is another genre-space question. because the opening post did not make this basic distinction, i thought it fair game to go after it from both directions.


usually arguments in defense of "standard" written english are not about genre-specific adaptations of the language--they are more expressions of anxiety, usually class-specific, about the relation of the dominant mode of expression to a dialect that is seen as encroaching on whatever sense of cultural or racial homogeniety people derive from the fact of standarization.

in this kind of debate, the question is different: each argument for the "standard" involves cultural power. it involves (at a remove) the question of domination--the dominant class exercizes its power in the cultural sphere by enforcing its standards for communication on all others.
this kind of conflict is understood best through linguistics-oriented readings of colonialism in various forms--the conflicts between super-and sub-strate, the conflicts between written and oral (see walter ong's work on this)....

so you act as though you are defending some objective standard when in fact you are just as much defending the position of a particular social group to impose its standard as universal.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

gondath

I agree with analog about most of the problem being laziness. The casualty of this is communication. This is not a debate over who gets to define what as common English usage. It's commantary about how it is becoming just plain harder to understand people because of their shortcuts, acronyms, and weird unclassfiable text inserted into conversations. The evolution of language should never head in a direction that makes communication more difficult. When it does, something is wrong. As an example but not to pick on him, I find roachboy's unique style hard as hell to understand at times.

Church

I find myself saying the letters L O L sometimes. Now that's sad. And I admit, my language is degrading from use of the internet, but since everyone else is using it and can understand me, doesn't that make it ok?

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analog

roachboy: It is a degradation when the communication level is broken down, or the "relaxed" speech follows into what is supposed to be "formal" speech. I work for a professional company, and the people within the company send emails back and forth about important, company-related material. It happens with increasing frequency (though thankfully not often) that I will receive an email containing atrocious grammar, misspellings (despite the fact that ALL company machines use Word or Outlook, which have spellcheckers), and bizarre 'net lingo. I've seen "lol" on a professional document. I'll have entire emails with no capitalization or even basic punctuation, like commas. That's just sad.

Sign Related

I think if someone knows proper grammar, they can translate something that lacks proper grammar. They can put whatever it is into proper grammar.

Mephisto2

I couldn't agree more. There's no excuse for poor English, especially in professional correspondence and documents.


Mr Mephisto

roachboy

analog--
actually, i would agree with you as well--switching genre is switching how you write.
formal english matters in most professional contexts because the rules of the game make it required.

sometimes i see netspeak in academic papers--there is usually some larger point attached to the usage--but it rarely works. the correlate of it from the 1970s was the personal or autobiographical bit--made sense at the time, now just makes you cringe.

i teach writing, actually: the only argument that i make about standard usage in student papers follows from the social/institutional requirements--if you do not follow a certain format, and meet certain linguistic criteria, you will reduce your own work to noise.

if you violate the rules without knowing them, you reduce your work to noise.

if you violate the rules and know you are doing it, you engage in a kind of risky game in which the expectations are immediately raised, and the period that seperates beginning to read from dismissing out of hand is shortened.
because the violation of the rules in this case engenders the "who the fuck do you think you are?" response.

which i have always found to be interesting as a response--it was not what i expected to find, given a general background of discussions like this one...



i was not arguing against standardized english as such, but only against the idea that there is anything more than social standards at stake in it--nothing about the "Essence" of the language, nothing about the General State of Things---rather, what is at stake is particular kinds of power relations as they play out in particular contexts across the enforcement of a social norm--in this case a linguistic one.

to see things this way is not necessarily to argue against the norms themselves.

in your post, i found it interesting to read about leakage between genres --that you have communications in your company about official bidness happening in both formal and informal written registers--it is not surprising in principle that there would be leakage/confusion/interpenetration of types of writing.

but i am curious....

in your company:

are there consequences/sanctions for this leakage/confusion/blurring of writing forms?

how does the sanction process work?

is it formal or informal?

has there been an official response to this kind of blurring or writing types?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

tspikes51

I am worried about the fact that these different genres are leaking into each other. I agree completely that language is something that should be experimented with, and that different genres are acceptable. However, English- speaking people should be proficient in at least the standard form of English, so that they can share ideas and information with maximum efficiency.

__________________
"I'm telling you, we need to get rid of a few people or a million."
-Maddox