Does texting dumb down the English language?

[Tyrion]

Texting is fine.. even though it annoys me when people use "text talk" and shorten three letter words. Really?

What I really hate though is when you go out to dinner, or a bar (or what not) with people.. and everyone spends nearly the entire time on their smart phones. What ever happened to actually being social without having an electronic device glued to your hands?

[Mirage]

[princealbertofb]

I red this thread and I lold cuz srsly who dsn't like txting

Yes, it can have a serious derogatory effect on normal conversational/written English if you text solely using odd acronyms and offensive abbreviations and let it infiltrate your sense of language, but I find it useful for rapid communication of shorter messages.

Chris, please define acronym... Just in case.

[princealbertofb]

7h3R3'5 7h053 wh0 wr173 1337

There's those who write what? Leet? Ieet?

[princealbertofb]

Well, seriously I'm not sure the older generation who has not grown with text messages is much better in orthograph than young people who are used to this kind of language.

To have read mixed generationnal forums like this one but in French, there was no real difference in level of language between both. Well, some young people couldn't write correctly but it was marginal (here, I can't really judge actually).

The common word is SPELLING, Ekwarph. However, I think I've noticed more spelling and grammar mistakes made today in exam and test papers than there used to be in the past. My problem is that it's no longer carelessness or laziness but real ignorance.

It is true that people probably write more than they used to before, now that we send text messages, e-mails and posts on forums or entries in blogs, we're constantly writing... The general level of understanding of language can sometimes be rather poor, and what seems to be lacking the most is the desire to use the proper words and spelling when there are such useful and easy tools as Internet dictionaries, spell-checkers etc... Basically people are a little bit too lazy when trying to get their messages across. You'd expect them to want to get it right.

I've just been invigilating the end of year exams and I'm struck by the number of students who don't use the rough paper they are provided with. They write straight to the exam paper without giving themselves the opportunity of changing the wording, reorganising ideas or checking the spelling while they're copying out their essays to their final format. Why is it we want everything to be immediate? Editing and proof-reading really really are skills that would need to be taught more thoroughly.

Even in the official instructions for the exam invigilation there were spelling and grammar mistakes. That used not to happen. What's more, these mistakes are becoming commonplace in newspapers too where they used to be rare. (not talking about the Grauniad! ) What a shame!

[princealbertofb]

i agr33 txtin is intim8. whoevr said it wsnt is lyin.
----

Yes, it dumbs things down! It's why I text in full and complete sentences, leading my friends to tell me: "You text weird!".

.

Lol..... Am I texting?

[princealbertofb]

As prolifically? Probably quite a few other languages. Some languages also have diacritical signs such as accents, cedillas and other signs. English is quite an easy language in terms of written signs.

[Chas]

My phone is always suggesting spellings because I almost hit every letter on the screen, I don't like to use "txt speak". I'd rather have something coherent then something that I have to guess at times.

[princealbertofb]

My phone is always suggesting spellings because I almost hit every letter on the screen, I don't like to use "txt speak". I'd rather have something coherent then something that I have to guess at times.

Before very long you'll have an app which you'll only have to talk to and it'll write up the message for you.

[Chas]

Before very long you'll have an app which you'll only have to talk to and it'll write up the message for you.

I sometimes do that with my phone, the outcomes can be funny if it gets it all wrong.