Things that drive me crazy II
I happen upon other blogs and find some that are unreadable. No, not because they were written in a language that is foreign to me, but because they are composed of "kid code lingo" (I call this Wrong-Write) - born from text messaging and flourishing now as a written language of its own.
It is the opposite of the communication problems people have in China. The Chinese have a common written language (so they can always communicate by writing) but their dialects are so wide and so different, one to the other, they often cannot orally communicate.
Wrong-Write is unintelligible unless you are a kid and you spend your days text messaging. In most cases, though, that same kid can speak English well enough to get his or her point across.
Reverse China Syndrome. If this keeps up these kids will soon lose the ability to write anything that is readable by anyone other than a text-messaging-teen and soon to follow will be their inability to read anything other than this kiddish code.
I am not exaggerating when I say I cannot understand what they are saying.
According to my daughter, there are lessons on this Wrong-Write on the back of a a kid's cereal box. This slays me.
I am old enough to remember when most written words were spelled correctly. Spelling tests were weekly events and grammar was not optional but enforced. Then I saw how my children were allowed to write phonetically so that their creativity wasn't squashed. Bah. Now we are actively encouraging children to write in the text messaging style which should push these bad spellers over the edge to a place where books will have to be translated into Wrong-Write...that is if these kids will ever want to read a book. Sad.
If I had kids of text messaging age they would not be doing it. Brains hold onto wrong information as easily as right information. The wrong information never quite goes away and lurks in the background...just ask people who can't remember what the difference is between adapt and adopt or apprise and appraise or lay and lie. Of course the former mentioned bugbears will be nothing compared to dealing with graduates of Wrong-Write. Because of their inability to either read or write, they might just disappear from the planet.
I happen upon other blogs and find some that are unreadable. No, not because they were written in a language that is foreign to me, but because they are composed of "kid code lingo" (I call this Wrong-Write) - born from text messaging and flourishing now as a written language of its own.
It is the opposite of the communication problems people have in China. The Chinese have a common written language (so they can always communicate by writing) but their dialects are so wide and so different, one to the other, they often cannot orally communicate.
Wrong-Write is unintelligible unless you are a kid and you spend your days text messaging. In most cases, though, that same kid can speak English well enough to get his or her point across.
Reverse China Syndrome. If this keeps up these kids will soon lose the ability to write anything that is readable by anyone other than a text-messaging-teen and soon to follow will be their inability to read anything other than this kiddish code.
I am not exaggerating when I say I cannot understand what they are saying.
According to my daughter, there are lessons on this Wrong-Write on the back of a a kid's cereal box. This slays me.
I am old enough to remember when most written words were spelled correctly. Spelling tests were weekly events and grammar was not optional but enforced. Then I saw how my children were allowed to write phonetically so that their creativity wasn't squashed. Bah. Now we are actively encouraging children to write in the text messaging style which should push these bad spellers over the edge to a place where books will have to be translated into Wrong-Write...that is if these kids will ever want to read a book. Sad.
If I had kids of text messaging age they would not be doing it. Brains hold onto wrong information as easily as right information. The wrong information never quite goes away and lurks in the background...just ask people who can't remember what the difference is between adapt and adopt or apprise and appraise or lay and lie. Of course the former mentioned bugbears will be nothing compared to dealing with graduates of Wrong-Write. Because of their inability to either read or write, they might just disappear from the planet.
posted by mary bishop | 10:18 AM
2 Comments:
ITA!
Ita Ho
as in potatoes?
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