(no subject)
Dear Young Ones to Whom B.C. equates to Before Computers, or Before Cellphones:
Texting on your cellphones is a place for, understandably, using lots of space-saving shorthand, including no capital letters, no punctuation, and phonetic spelling instead of the actual English language spelling and syntax, all in an effort to save time and space (not to mention your fingers as they type on those tiny little keypads.)
Public forums on the internet, such as group interest journals, email groups and listservs and the like, ARE NOT. Please do show everyone you are not complete morons (as I despair of much of the public being these days) and show off your use of good English and punctuation. Or, barring that (perhaps I'm expecting more than is possible) at least **attempt** to create complete sentences and use capital letters where appropriate. Then, possibly, it may be readable enough to understand for those of us who grew up speaking and reading English instead of Cellphone.
Civilizations create common grounds in many things for, ultimately, survival. If we were all to ignore the framework of our language and simply say/speak/write however we wanted, our communications would grind to a halt in short order. Imagine if we were all to wake up and decide to ignore the rules of the road and create our own ideas of how to drive and manage behind the wheel....oh, yes, I suppose that's happened already, hasn't it? I see morons on the roadways every day who don't know how to drive and don't understand the framework upon which driving safely and defensively is based.
Yes, yes, I forgot...we have no viable school system in this country anymore (unless you pay for private school) so it's no wonder we're turning out "graduates" who don't know basics.
Wow, yes, that's pretty depressing, isn't it...but yes, our culture seems to be sliding down that slippery slope toward third world status very quickly. Everybody will have a cellphone and a computer as they get there, so it's all okay in the end, isn't it?
Texting on your cellphones is a place for, understandably, using lots of space-saving shorthand, including no capital letters, no punctuation, and phonetic spelling instead of the actual English language spelling and syntax, all in an effort to save time and space (not to mention your fingers as they type on those tiny little keypads.)
Public forums on the internet, such as group interest journals, email groups and listservs and the like, ARE NOT. Please do show everyone you are not complete morons (as I despair of much of the public being these days) and show off your use of good English and punctuation. Or, barring that (perhaps I'm expecting more than is possible) at least **attempt** to create complete sentences and use capital letters where appropriate. Then, possibly, it may be readable enough to understand for those of us who grew up speaking and reading English instead of Cellphone.
Civilizations create common grounds in many things for, ultimately, survival. If we were all to ignore the framework of our language and simply say/speak/write however we wanted, our communications would grind to a halt in short order. Imagine if we were all to wake up and decide to ignore the rules of the road and create our own ideas of how to drive and manage behind the wheel....oh, yes, I suppose that's happened already, hasn't it? I see morons on the roadways every day who don't know how to drive and don't understand the framework upon which driving safely and defensively is based.
Yes, yes, I forgot...we have no viable school system in this country anymore (unless you pay for private school) so it's no wonder we're turning out "graduates" who don't know basics.
Wow, yes, that's pretty depressing, isn't it...but yes, our culture seems to be sliding down that slippery slope toward third world status very quickly. Everybody will have a cellphone and a computer as they get there, so it's all okay in the end, isn't it?