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Does Grammar Matter? The shifting standards for correct spelling and punctuationBY: Guest User | Category: Writing | Submitted: 2010-02-24 09:55:25
Unless you are a professional writer or are teaching English, chances are that you don't keep a copy of "Strunk & White: The Elements of Style" on your bookshelf. Me? I not only enjoy looking up the proper grammar and spelling online and using reference books, I have been given the nickname "Grammar Nazi" because of my tendency to correct friends, web sites, and advertisements that dare to make a grammatical mistake. What has made my own quest for grammatical excellence difficult, though, is the advent of "Internet 2.0." The new application of the internet not only for information dissemination, but also for social networking, has made some dramatic changes to the overall expectations for grammar and spelling. In a recent episode of "The Simpsons," model student Lisa Simpson is encouraged by hover-parent Homer to make friends with the cool crowd. She updates her style, holds a cell-phone decorating party, and adds her friends to her Facebook page. Yet near the end of this experiment, Lisa texts Homer: "I H8 this." It seems that even brainiac Lisa Simpson has been affected by our culture's shifting grammatical acceptability. The new forms of communication, as well as the expectation for fast and on-demand communication, have made our traditional forms of written communication seem awkward, slow, and out dated. And in reality, they are. Who has time to text everything they need to say to a friend, when it is much easier (on the reader"s time and on the writer"s fingers) to say "Can't talk. C u at 6. Ttyl." Instead of "I can"t talk right now. I'"ll see you at six. Talk to you later!" As long as the person receiving the message is able to understand it, then there shouldn't be anything inherently wrong with the message that was sent. The rub comes when this new form of shorthand is used in a context that has not accepted it yet. There have been stories of professors in college giving students lower grades because they used this texting shorthand in their papers. While it may seem obvious enough that using "H8" for "hate" is not appropriate in a school assignment, the current generation of youth has grown up with cell phones in hand, using the shorthand in the majority of their communication with others. What have they experienced that would tell them that it is not okay to use this new shorthand in academic or professional pieces? When it comes down to it, the standards of acceptable use for Internet 2.0 shorthand have not been well defined yet. Though there are employers and teachers who make it clear that this short hand is not acceptable, their students are the ones who will be taking over their positions in a few years. Dictionaries are updated often to include and exclude words based on the common vernacular. Our standards for appropriate communication are constantly shifting based on the tools and potential uses that we are faced with. In a few years, it may not surprise us to read textbooks and novels that regularly employ the use of this new shorthand. Article Source: http://www.writearticles.org/ About Author / Additional Info: - Jen Comments on this article: (1 comments so far)
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