Our DIRE Future
Am I a perfect writer? FAR from it. I’m punctuation-challenged and mix my tense, jumping into the past while talking about the present.
But the following is an example of common spelling infractions found on Facebook apps:
youyr related to a guy who has a hot wife and oddapts alot of kids!
Is this our future? Is this what we have to look forward to because of digital publishing options and social networking? Will a lack of editorial accountability and an ever-increasing laziness toward Dictionary.com erode the proper use of our English language? Will we see this creep into the business world? Will executives send business letters that say:
Let’s throw back sum brews and diss the compatithion tomoroe.
Is this an indication that our society is disintegrating? Our world crumbling? Coming to an end!
Probably not. I’m pretty sure the masses were convinced the printing press would undermine the integrity of the message of the text if it was no longer handwritten on parchments by monks.
Does that sentence, the one above that I plucked off of Facebook, horrify me? Absolutely! It also makes me sad to know that our schools are so stressed that they let that slide through. But does that sentence mean the person who typed it is someone inferior? Maybe even stupid or…or…full of ill intent?! Uh, no. That sentence tells us that person doesn’t know how to spell and didn’t take the time to look the words up, but doesn’t indicate the person is considering a bank heist or kicking their dog.
Our world is not ending because of poor spelling. Crisis has been averted. You may return to your previous activities.
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