Does texting dumb down the English language?

[pellaz]

[MisterTinkles]

[Counselor]

I used to think FTW was supposed to wtf that was so effed, you had to say it backwards.

Then I found out it used to stand for "fuck the world" until gamers took it to "for the win". Now there are bikers with tattoos they probably regret.

[Juniorlove]

LOL!

[Bowyn Aerrow]

A Hundred or so of years ago, before the invention of the pen, people used the quill. Each word they basically had to stop, dip the quill before writing the next.

Hundreds of years ago English was a lot more flowery and poetic as those tiny pauses caused people to think about what they were writing.

Then comes the terrible endlessly flowing pen which murdered poetic flowery English as people no longer paused to think about their words and just scribbled away.

The US Constitution was hand written with quills. It is a flowery little document. Had the founding fathers had computers, word processors I bet it wouldn't read half as prosaic as it does.

Each advance in our technology when it comes to how we write has a profound impact on what we write.

Today I understand that cursive writing is going the way of the Dinosaur in schools, as school doesn't feel that there is a place for cursive penmanship in an age of computers and keyboards.

Is it a dumbing down? I don't think so.

English is a living language, it has been changing and continues to change.

Take the word "ain't". Back when I was a kid your English teacher would tell you 'ain't isn't in the dictionary'. Today it is, the sheer pressure of so many users of that insulting tiny word (insulting to the minds of English teachers) lead to it being officially accepted by Oxford and Webster.

The language is changing all the time. Cat's Pajamas doesn't have the same meaning it had 100 years ago. Gay - oh my, has that one changes over the decades or what?

The influence of technology is definitely leaving its mark on how people write, and I daresay on how people think as well.

There is a definite difference between the way people of my generation think and go about conversation than the 20 something crowd who grew up with texting.

It does not mean its 'dumb' or 'ignorant' it only means that times and language are always on the move.

Its all kind of groovy. ;-)

[pellaz]

Siri can spell better than i do.

[MisterTinkles]

A Hundred or so of years ago, before the invention of the pen, people used the quill. Each word they basically had to stop, dip the quill before writing the next.

Hundreds of years ago English was a lot more flowery and poetic as those tiny pauses caused people to think about what they were writing.

Then comes the terrible endlessly flowing pen which murdered poetic flowery English as people no longer paused to think about their words and just scribbled away.

The US Constitution was hand written with quills. It is a flowery little document. Had the founding fathers had computers, word processors I bet it wouldn't read half as prosaic as it does.

Each advance in our technology when it comes to how we write has a profound impact on what we write.

Today I understand that cursive writing is going the way of the Dinosaur in schools, as school doesn't feel that there is a place for cursive penmanship in an age of computers and keyboards.

Is it a dumbing down? I don't think so.

English is a living language, it has been changing and continues to change.

Take the word "ain't". Back when I was a kid your English teacher would tell you 'ain't isn't in the dictionary'. Today it is, the sheer pressure of so many users of that insulting tiny word (insulting to the minds of English teachers) lead to it being officially accepted by Oxford and Webster.

The language is changing all the time. Cat's Pajamas doesn't have the same meaning it had 100 years ago. Gay - oh my, has that one changes over the decades or what?

The influence of technology is definitely leaving its mark on how people write, and I daresay on how people think as well.

There is a definite difference between the way people of my generation think and go about conversation than the 20 something crowd who grew up with texting.

It does not mean its 'dumb' or 'ignorant' it only means that times and language are always on the move.

Its all kind of groovy. ;-)

True to a point. But theres a difference between changing through the years and dumbing down. Changing with the times happens slowliy, over time. Dumbing down happens very quickly and is more like an aggressive virus. Theres nothing you can do to stop it.

I remember when "aint" wasnt a word. I remember when conjunctions were not considered words at all, and the backhands students saw when using them in English class!!!

[Bowyn Aerrow]

This is the first time in human history where the whole globe can "talk" in real-time to one another.

This isn't like back in the day when it required at least two days to send a letter across town, or a week to send a letter over seas. I had Pen Pals in Europe, it took weeks to have a conversation. Today the same conversation can be done in 'real time'....

Today no matter where you are (at) you can send a text to just about anyone on earth.

This is also a historical time in English history, as more people today speak/write English than at any other time in the history of the language. The more people using it, the more its going to change and more rapidly as well.

Texting itself is fascinating. Taken at face value, a lot of data can be conveyed through a shorthand message system that the whole world has agreed upon in a remarkable short period of time.

WTF, LOL, and all of these other condensed sentences are pretty much understood by anyone with the internet/telecommunication presence. Even non-letter charcters are used to convey concepts, such as ;-) is universally seen as a wink.

Way back at the dawn of the World Wide Web everyone says W W W. Whatever dot com. Today no one even bothers with the WWW. Today its Hashtag (#). The technology has changed us, rapidly and we are adapting rapidly to using the technology with a lot of it being basic knowledge which no longer needs to be expressed.

This 'sudden' change is largely due to how sudden and pervasive technology is. This isn't a virus dumbing down, this is the speed of light communication which is putting the computing power of whole buildings into the pockets of people.

Yesterday at the grocers I saw a 5-6 year old sitting in the grocery cart with a Kindle pad reading a child's book. That kid is growing up in a world where everyone carried a pad of some sort and the paper book I grew up with is quickly fading away.

This has been happening for a while now, new technologies emerging and the shrinking of computers to little handheld things.

To think that the typical Iphone has more processing power and data storage than the first computer I worked on in the late 1980's that ran Basic.

Such power, such wonders this generation has at its disposal...

And to think, predictions have it that eventually the computer will be part of your body... Thoughts being sent from person to person.

Think English is being dumbed down now, wait until you read what other people actually think!

:biggrin:

[Kiid]

I don't think it dose. The english language was already a but dumb

[Ekwarph]

wht r u talkin bout u stupid or wat?

You were a YouTube hater in a former life ? XD