Correct English, spelling and punctuation

What ever happened to what we learned in English class when we were in school?

About 5 years ago before texting came into being, I got an email that went something like this----------I was wanting to know what you was wanting for--------

Yesterday I received the following email along with a picture.

I haven't yet responded and may not.

i was needing all this part if u haver it i have a 1989 buick reatta 7 how much if u do have it call me 806xxxxxxx thanksmy name is xxxxxxxx % XXXXXXXX%

Edited November 6, 2010 by Jim (see edit history)

I feel your pain. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time.

Jim, I know exactly what you mean. There are a lot of people that come here on the forum, (and usually soon leave), that write like they are in a teenage chat room. As you say, they use no punctuation and it is usually all written in one long sentence. That makes it extremely hard to read. A lot of times I could probably help them with their problem but I don't respond because it's so hard to decipher their text.

Spellcheck?

We dont need no stinkin spellcheck!

Kit

I'm 15, but I pride myself on being able to communicate VIA typing. Spelling and punctuation are in the same learning bracket at math. If you know simple addition and subtraction, you ought to know where to put a capital latter, or a comma.

I do not need an edigimation, I have a komputer. I do need a job, I only want the money. 'NO PROBLEM' ,I want you to think I know what I am doing. I will screw it up for you, then say ' SORRY' . .

Ifn jims vikins were doin betta he woodnt be so crankie lol

English as a second language, removal of phonics and tolerance of creative spelling from elementary school education classes.

I vote for all of the above along with many other factors that come along later.

Ifn jims vikins were doin betta he woodnt be so crankie lol

id jsut lold.

Dont worry it wont be long before Spanish will be our number one language,English will be history in this country. Bill WEB 38

id jsut lold.

Me too.

Twice.

I here that spell check works fine, sew eye use it all the thyme. Inn awl my communications, eye can't say that any won has ever complained, as their sew impressed with my skills. Hour maine concern should be the manure generation, hose English skill has scene such a degeneration, that eye some thyme wonder wear there next job will come from.

Eye guess many of them think of texting as an art farm. Sew sad.

Dont worry it wont be long before Spanish will be our number one language,English will be history in this country. Bill WEB 38

Maybe Spanish would be better than the new Euro-English. It will be the next language in some parts of the world. They say it will be better than plain English but I have my doubts.

The European Commission have just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase in plan that would be known as "EuroEnglish":

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c"-- Sertainly this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" wil be replaced with the "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"'s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away.

By the 4th yar peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yar, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

Irregardless of that...

Comedian Eddie Izzard had a bit that he compared American English with the Queen's English. He is English and thought that the Americans spelling THRU was better than THROUGH. It seemed as if when they were first coming up with the spelling, they just started stringing letters together. He went on to say that Americans, however, couldn't pronounce certain words like HERB. "Because there's an H in it".

I love it Ronnie!!!!!!

Oh boy,

Does this open up a can of contention. I am unspeakably (pun intended) irritated by "txt msg englsh". Of course, this is just an extension of a decades old tendency that seems to have started with computer wonks; that of eliminating vowels to abbreviate words, probably originally intended to save precious bytes of RAM storage. To be blunt, text messaging just p/$$#s me off in general. Lets see, what do you use to send text messages? Yeah, that's right, a phone.

Thus, with the very same device you are already carrying, you can make calls with it and actually speak [oh, how terribly imposing, I have to form words with my mouth?] in real time to someone without having to decipher near unintelligible strings of abbreviations, or bang out textual garbage on an ergonomic bastardization of a so called keyboard. Then there is the auto-complete (T9 Text function) that most phones now have that guesses and fills in words based on the first 2 or 3 letters you typed. I recall a comedian doing a routine about this, sending a text message to his girlfriend when he was sloppy drunk. She later asked him why he wanted to kick her puppy when he got home.

What is the fascination with this stupid, time wasting, glaucoma and carpal-tunnel inducing means of communicating? It takes longer, and is far less effective. I am proud to say I have never in my life sent a text message, and if I ever received one, wouldn't answer it. If someone wants to talk to me, they best be prepared to do it in an intelligent and more conventional means than text messaging. I simply refuse to play that fools game. I suppose this makes me sound like a sanctimonious jerk, but I really cannot stand text messaging.

Having vented on that issue, I will say that I am often bothered by poor spelling and pronunciation, but I also realize that there are people who are not endowed with these skills for one reason or another. Some are learning disabled (I have relatives with such problems) and others just received a poor education. These I can understand, and even excuse.

Conversely, those who know better but are too lazy to do it right will not always find me so charitable. I have received emails from people I know who can and usually do send properly composed messages. Then they suddenly throw me a curveball of illiteracy, and I have have been known to reply "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot". If I have to guess what you are trying to say, or what that point is, then you failed to communicate properly. Please try again.

KDirk

I see where the club needs a class in booklearnen at next years National meet in Danvers. Jim you can hold the class so practice,

Chuck

Ronnie,

The Kaiser would be proud of you.

zis vread is kraking mi up... wit everyzing frm stinki vinkigs t Euro-English...

heck, i kan't even spel my nam in Euro-English. dis b retarded.

Dee reeson for textng is so kids kan do it in skool with out the taecher noticeing. I think.

Jim, I'm right there with you.

Everytime I get a letter with a bunch of typos, I grade it, make the corrections and send it back. Most get a D or F. I am giving your post A+. Nice going!

how cum phonics aint spelled with a " F "

I have to start my work Iphone messages with 'I know how to spell, but I have an Iphone.

Already in Beta, The Zombie Apocalypse is next. The Virus, It's an iPhone app ...I see bodies wandering... connected with white ear connectors and wandering; away from their friends in all directions. They cross streets in any direction and cross them while texting.

If their Parents knew!

Edited April 6, 2014 by rjfranken
more sober (see edit history)

You realize that five year plan was announced in 2001...

What ever happened to what we learned in English class when we were in school?

About 5 years ago before texting came into being, I got an email that went something like this----------I was wanting to know what you was wanting for--------

Yesterday I received the following email along with a picture.

I haven't yet responded and may not.

i was needing all this part if u haver it i have a 1989 buick reatta 7 how much if u do have it call me 806xxxxxxx thanksmy name is xxxxxxxx % XXXXXXXX%

That's a pet-peeve of mine too, but I try to take into account that English isn't everybody's first language. I have no patience for an American who cannot/does not speak correctly or doesn't even care about communicating effectively, but if it's someone who has just arrived in this country I can give them some slack. I would imagine that is the case in the email you received.

How about ghetto English.DO THEY LEARN THAT IN SCHOOL. Bill

Wow, another long dead thread resurrected. I'll reitrate what I said upthread from a few years back with one notable change: since then I finally caved in and bought a smart phone. Thus, I can no longer claim not to have sent a text.

I do use proper spelling and punctuation in text messaging, prompting some to ask why I spend so much effort composing a text message. My reply: 4 u 2 read it bttr dufus.

KDirk

I still have a "flip" phone. I do not text. Why take the time to text when talking is so much better?

My cars "speak" text messages to me.

Kevin,

Triple dittos on everything you stated!

I think texting is the biggest farce on the planet. If you wish to communicate with me then simply give me a call. I answer my phone and speak very clearly. I assure you it will take MUCH less time than wiggling your thumbs around for several minutes like an idiot.

Bob

Kevin,

Triple dittos on everything you stated!

I think texting is the biggest farce on the planet. If you wish to communicate with me then simply give me a call. I answer my phone and speak very clearly. I assure you it will take MUCH less time than wiggling your thumbs around for several minutes like an idiot.

Bob

Not a texting fan either...I guess the next progression "up" from texting will be morse code.

Interesting how history keeps repeating itself.

The very first means of rapid long distance communication was the telegraph/telegram. Now texting is all the rage. Progress or a return to our roots?

Sort of takes the wind out of Alexander Graham Bell's contribution doesn't it.

Just need to wait for the cycle to continue.

Now they're pushing for Orlando residents to abandon their cars and ride the "new" trains. Hope someone is still experimenting with telepathy and personal jet packs so we can break the circles.

Well, I text only grudgingly. Being in business for myself I find that some people expect to be able to text me. Sometimes this is helpful if I need an address for a jobsite or some other information in writing. Generally however, I prefer spoken communication.

And I concur with Mc, that texting is just a rehash of telegraphy. That its popularity started with teeneagers is no surprise. Teens are mostly a bunch of trend following drones, and when texting was made the new, cool thing by the phone makers, they mindlessly embraced the fad just as they were expected to. The millennials also seem to have a thing for retro technology. Big resurgence in LP's is largely due to that age group. Retro video games seem to be big now as well. In a way, texting is as retro as you can get unless pinning hand written notes to pigeons.

I am surprised at the enduring popularity of texting. Meanwhile, other stupid fads like facebook are finally starting their inexorable decline, thankfully. Of course there will be something just as shallow and uselss to take its place as the true reason for social networking is to stroke ones ego with the validation that comes from dozens or hundreds of "friends" (read: sycophants and orbiters) "liking" whatever you posted (i.e. the 2000th picture of your fat cat or daily starbucks ration). We have way too many narcissists now who think their average daily existence is of great importance. Eventually they will learn otherwise. Their wailing at this realization will be breathtaking.

What does seem apparent is that each new iteration of these fads has a lower overall adoption rate, and less staying power than its predecessors. Twitter has never reached the heights that facebook did. Instagram in turn has not (yet) reached the same critical mass as twitter, and probably won't before enough users lose interest. This crowd (the early adopters and heavy users) is notoriously fickle and lacks much attention span.

What I see is the trend being fragmented. This means that no single social network is likely to gain such wide use as facebook did at its all time high. Eventually it will all burn out when they realize that instead of sending naughty pictures by phone they could be playing doctor like in the "old days". Just not in a Reatta, since there is no back seat.

KDirk

My smartphone (Samsung Stratosphere) has a flip-out keyboard - which is really nice for avoiding fat-fingered typos. In other respects, it is an average phone with poor battery life.

There is a fun book that was published a few years ago called "The Victorian Internet". Prior to the invention of the telegraph, the fastest a message could travel was as fast as a horse could gallop, or a ship could sail. (And the occasional smoke signal, or by flags.) The telegraphy networks changed everything. The book chronicles this and makes a lot of comparisons between then and now. It is easy to read in an evening or two.

I think facebook will be with us for some time. It is good for a number of reasons besides how many 'likes' one gets on posts or how many 'friends' we accept. I have a lot less use for twitter and some of the others.

Some things just catch your eye, like this thread on the Buick Clubs directory page.

I understand about the abbreviations and acronyms, too. That's why I was so entertained by a poster from this organization. Their poster was hanging by the door of a diner I stopped in:

Bernie

I view facebook as nothing more than CB radio on a computer. Same old "who gives a crap" drivel day after day after day after......

i don't "text" much at all. mainly it used to be to my 23 yr. old daughter. now she has a phone that gets any e-mails i send (easier to use a 'puter keyboard with my fat fingers and slow typing ability). with her employment, it's much easier for her to "get away" with a text back that goes to my e-mail site without notice from others. plus she's grown up with the tech (and is a fast typist)... we actually "speak" over the phone when able.

re: Facebook - i don't spend a lot of time there, but have been "found" by many folks that i haven't talked/seen since i was a mere yout'. it's been great catching up with these folks after 40 plus years! most (not all) of my contacts don't post trivial info, such as where or what they are having for lunch!

I don't text and my car can read them to me with the press of a steering wheel button. Do sometimes send e-mails to text addresses, does that count ?

What's sad is not all of the trashing of the English language, it's that most of the people who do it don't even care. They look undeducated and they don't care. It's ok to not know something, but to make that evident to the world repeatedly and not care, that's sad. Many people have no self-awareness whatsoever, yet they honestly think they do. Pitiful.

Because texting is cheaper. You don't use up your minutes.

You can take your time and respond when you want to and you can take your time formulating what you want to say. There IS a reason people text and/or sends lots of emails. The rest of you just haven't figured that out yet. Kit

Edited April 4, 2014 by Kitskaboodle
Grammer (see edit history)