Just think of it as a dialect.

* eats his own words due to some strangely misplaced commas *

This student was probably hang-gliding when s/he wrote that, hence the brevity and lack of punctuation.

Ouch.
I'm a big fan of colloquial speech in messages, but that has to win some kind of prize.
Even though I too am not sure how to spell excursion.

Oh - I did it.
Excursion.
How it sounds.

Or maybe the email was sent from a cell phone?

Regardless, yikes.

nuspeak is not oldspeak

You're only complaining because you're right.

It's the culture. Sad, of course, but I think that this will be increasingly common as all the children who communicate primarily through SMS grow up.

I mean, I can understand the abbreviations. ppl. thnx. That doesn't worry me as much as "does anyone no" and "no where we are ment to meet."

University entrance here requires passing a 12th grade English subject. What the hell is going on?

Passing high school English does not necessarily require one to be able to spell. Especially in an age of typed homework and spellcheck.

I'd write back and tell him you can't understand what he's asking.

Perhaps there is no k on his keyboard? That would explain the "no"s and "thx" but not the utter ineptitude.

I'm crying a little myself.

Clearly "k" has become unnecessary. I think you should take this abbreviation scheme a step further and respond without using the space bar.

Dyslexics of the world, untie!

Ugh. I second killdevil's advice. That kind of laziness makes my blood boil. I mean, you're writing to your prof, fer chrissakes. (Caveat: I'm an editor--among other things--and so my crotchety strictness and occasional rages regarding language abuse are not only expected, they're rewarded. I don't have to live in the real language-slaughtering world as much.)

I have a recently-hired cow-orker who could very well have written that. It drives me nuts, especially as he's in his forties.

email/the internet are informal. k thnx bye!

Don't be so quick to rule out the letter k. :P

I second small_ruminant about lexicon and me3dia about the cellphone. I t doesn't make it any less ugly. As a writer, I cringe. As a language and linguistics major (or rather as those two having been my majors in college), I'm completely fascinated.

My mother, nearing 60, who has always been brutally unyeilding and exacting when it comes to grammar, spelling and punctuation, also now sends me short messages such as this. I pointed it out to her, joking about how she'd've flipped her lid had she seen me do the same thing 25 years ago. Her response and perspective came from having been a professional stenographer and she feels that it's merely the 'new shorthand'. I tend to agree, so long as one can form an intelligent and grammatically correct sentence when it's appropriate. (And perhaps that's the larger underlying question: when is this form of shorthand appropriate and when should one be more formal? Surely, for example, one wouldn't walk up to their grandmother and say, "'Sup, bizatch?!", though I'm equally sure that the current fluidity of dymanics social behavior have allowed just that to happen. The humanity!)

Whatever the case, it doesn't really change the fact that it looks goofy as shit.

Clearly "k" has become unnecessary

Then my name would just be Ir!

Is it bad that I think its really funny when a new member of MeFi starts posting comments like this and gets smacked down?

Probably but its just so wretched to look at and try to read. But then, I'm probably not very cool because I tend to think spelling counts.

oogo_booga, you hired a cow orker? What the uck does an orker do?

You what really pisses people off though? Correct their email, send it back and ask them to try again. But I bet you can get away with that alot easier if you're already a teacher.

dynamics *in* social behavior

Sorry, my editor is off having a cup of tea and she left me unsupervised with the proverbial keys to the computer. Silly woman.

As a writer, I cringe

I find that interesting. To play devil's advocate, we all understood what the author "ment," didn't we? That puts him ahead of 90% of the "correct" business writing I see.

This might not be an ideal way to express yourself in all situations, but to me the greater danger (by a huge margin) is teaching kids that writing is about memorizing a set of rules, rather than expressing ideas.

(Scott Fitzgerald, for one, couldn't spell for shit.)

In messages between friends or family you can do whatever you please, as far as I'm concerned. I still hold that corresponding with your teacher/prof, whether by email, text message, semaphore, or tin can and string, demands more formal language than that you would use with your friends. As does corresponding with your boss, clients, probation officer, etc. More meaning is conveyed by that message than the basic question being asked, as Jimbob's reaction demonstrates. The style distracts from what the student's trying to say and leaves at least some people with a very bad impression of the writer.

*goes off to have a soothing cup of tea and chase small children off her lawn*

drj, it's less the spelling that makes me cringe as the lack of punctuation that results in a muddy message. Anytime I have to reread something from a few diffrent possible intents to figure out what the meaning is, I cringe. Yes, sometimes visibly.

A communication style such as this is meant (or at least as I understand it) to be efficient. Shorthand on the sender's end is not efficient if it results in lost time on the receiver's end as they attempt to divine the meaning of the code.

The shortcut spellings would be fine if the sentence was easy to parse. I'm still not sure I get it.

Hi sorry to bug u but does anyone no with the fire exursion tomorrow ppl that are not catching the bus and meeting at Anstey's Hill no where we are ment to meet. thnx

I tried to rewrite it to match my interpretation:

Hi sorry to bug u. but does anyone no, with the fire exursion tomorrow, where ppl that are not catching the bus and meeting at Anstey's Hill are ment to meet? thnx

But it's still confusing. Are there multiple places at Anstey's Hill where one can meet? I guess if I knew the context, this would be easier.

Dyslexics of the world, untie!

You have nothing to lose but your chinas!

fenriq, he orks, obviously. I should have put a [sic] back there I suppose, especially since we're talking about spelling and whatnot.

As a linguistics student, it's very interesting. We have informal and formal ways of speaking, and text messaging and chatting have brought us a real-time text-based form of communication that are also ushering in an informal style of writing that is brand new. It's neat.

Now, I also just did a presentation on spelling and it seems that some people are great spellers and think of words the way they look (this would be me), and others spell the way words sound (my sister, for instance). As someone who really thinks that "Kyle" and "Kyal" are totally different names (because duh, they look different), the text-message spelling seems really really wrong to me.

Shortforms, I get. brb, lol, etc. But 'u'? Argh.

And yes, the most disturbing thing about that message is the double "no". Everything else is just an orthography issue -- that one is SYNTAX. It's not even a less-preferred syntax like "Me ain't know!"*, it's just WRONG.

*I have a research job where I study a Caribbean dialect in which "Me ain't go for see she" is totally grammatical. Neat!

drjimmy, I had to read it three times to understand what the person was trying to say. As others have said, it's not so much the abbreviations (although "no" for "know" and "u" for "you" drive me up the freakin' tree), it's the lack of coherent sentence structure that's the problem.

I find that interesting. To play devil's advocate, we all understood what the author "ment," didn't we?

Nope. Context would probably help, but as it stands without context it's incomprehensible gibberish.

Proper or discriminate abbreviations are fine, but using "no" for "know" and "u" for "you" and "ur" and all that hideously malformed crap makes me want to run amok with a deadly 80 pound IBM Selectric as a blunt instrument of smashing death.

In each case, it's two whole motherfuckin' characters. If someone is that lazy while texting on the phone, turn on the ezi or nokia rapid text entry and train it properly. If it's in a proper email client on a real computer with a real keyboard, that someone deserves to have their spine ripped out through their nose and fed to wild badgers.

Especially when emailing a professor, TA, or other faculty. If I was a professor or TA I'd totally keep a cage full of wild, rabid badgers on my desk with a nice brass plaque reading "Using text speak in official correspondance with faculty or in coursework will earn you the honor of having one of these introduced to your underpants and nethers."

"Counting counting they wer all the time. They had fun they had iron then and big fire they had towns of parpety. They had machines at numbers up. They fed them numbers and they fractiont out the Power of things. They had the Nos. of the rain bow and the Power of the air all workit out without counting which is how they got boats in the air and picters on the wind. Counting clevverness is what it wer."

*gives loquacious big wet kiss*

See? Being literate gets you women. Stay in school!

If you want people to be literate it better get them something. Despite corporate wailing about recruits' English skills, literacy doesn't actually get you a bit of extra money when you leave school.

applicant: I write like Macaulay. Pay me more.
recruiter: AAAHAAHAAHAAHAA

This thread brought to you by the Professional Organization of English Majors.

Seriously, though. I've been in this discussion too many times at MeFi to get overly involved again, but 'postliteracy' is shorthand for appalling laziness and overfamiliarity, in my book. Regardless of whether our written language is a hoary meaningless shibboleth, it's still custom and culture, and just as we learn not to drool and pick boogers in public, we must also learn to write decently.

And this generation gap between the literates and postliterates has only just begun to rear its ugly head. It'll become more an issue as the boomers retire, the X'ers start running things, and the milennials need jobs. I'm in the process of evaluating more than 50 highly qualified internship candidates at my job. Who got the ax first? The person who emailed me -- completely cold contact -- saying, and I quote:

"Dear Ms. M--

So, I'm senior history major about to graduate from Bates College this June, and am just starting to figure out the whole life/work thing. I wanted to find out if you offer internships or fellowships..."

'Life/work thing'? It's gonna take a little more effort than that to figure it out, honey.

To play devil's advocate, we all understood what the author "ment," didn't we?

No, I didn't. It took me significantly longer to parse than a properly constructed sentence, and I'm still not sure if I fully understood.

Of particular annoynce was the use of 'no' instead of 'know'. To parse that correctly I had to read past the error, notice that the sentence made no sense, and then try to find the mistake.

If I received an e-mail like this from a subordinate, or a friend, I'd respond saying "I have no idea what you're trying to say." If only because I care about them, and wouldn't want other people thinking that they're idiots.

Loquacious: hoary meaningless shibboleth.

I'm lucky I met my wife in person, rather than on the internet, because if I'd met her on the internet, I would have immediately dismissed her. Her ICQ / MSN messages are very much of the "LOL! HOW R U!!? :)" style. She would have made it to my ignore list in 5 seconds flat.

I'm not sure it's a "text messaging" thing as much as the result of certain practices in education. Aren't these the generation which did not have to spell correctly in school?

The last time I was in an elementary school, there were examples of illiteracy posted on all the walls... There was some theory about "whole word" something or other, which involved not teaching how to read properly. Then the kids were allowed to write out however they felt, and the teachers accepted it. When I was in elementary, no paper would be displayed in public without being rewritten with proper spelling (we knew about the concept of "drafts"). We learned the alphabetic code. The "whole learning" thing treats each new word as something individual to be memorised? These approaches involve different parts of the brain, and alphabetic code is what gives a person the tools to approach new words (in alphabet-based languages).

Anyway, it's rather amazing the number of young people going abroad now "to teach English" who have a limited grasp of basic grammar concepts (ie: "A word can't end in "ing" and be a noun, can it? Really?!" from a "teacher" not a student, though at least she asked, some of them just teach lies). But part of that is related to the disrespectful attitude in general toward teaching and teachers (in the U.S.), and the feeling that anyone with half a brain can do it, or is it simply the priviledge of being white and feelings of entitlement, regardless of skill or qualification?

Okay, I'm getting off track. Anyway, I suspect that this also relates to educational practices, and not only "text messaging"—many people who are labeled dyslexic improve when they relearn "phonics" (the alphabetic code). Australia (and England) are focusing on this recent failure to teach children to read properly. Now they are going back to teaching the alphabetic code, instead of treating reading as some kind of magic osmosis event.

If I understand correctly. (^_^) I myself have a reading problem, so I am going with summaries of the papers instead of reading them myself. (I'm also changing careers, so don't want to waste time on something that does take a significant portion of my time to do.)

ooga_booga, well just make sure he doesn't ork to ard, alright? They he might file an orkman's omp laim and those can be ostly.

All replies to said student should be parsed in a dead chaucerian style tongue. Please ensure that you swap all s's for f's.

Whan that ftudent to Excurfion comen was,
Ful ofte a day thy swelte and seyde `Allas,'
For seen his buf shal he nevere mo;
And shortly to concluden al his wo,
So muche sorwe hadde nevere creature,

etc...

Writing is about communication. If you got a message like that from a friend, you might shrug, but you'd accept it without complaint.

As a teacher, do you have to be all-pedant, all-the-time? I'd suggest a happy medium, where, in order to make students comfortable approaching you, you're pedantic in the classroom and forgiving on your own time/during office hours.

The point of study is learning, not teaching.

The last time I was in an elementary school, there were examples of illiteracy posted on all the walls... There was some theory about "whole word" something or other, which involved not teaching how to read properly.

I used to be a primary grades teacher. The "whole language" theory you're describing here is often misunderstood in just this way, because it does represent a fundamental change in pedagogy from what we grew up with. However, when properly applied, it works far better and faster than phonics/memorization instruction (particularly for boys, who are usually slower to begin fluently reading and writing). The secondary problem is that it's not always properly applied, due to the mediocre standards of teacher education and the wide variance in teaching skill.

Whole language theory is based on research into language acquisition -- how we learn to speak. We learn to speak not by staying silent until we can utter perfectly pronounced complete sentences, but by making attempts to mimic sounds and connect them with meanings. Adults around us don't slap down our early attempts at speech -- they repeat and encourage them. Through an iterative process, children gradually fine-tune their pronunciation, sentence structure, and vocabulary.

Whole language takes the same approach to writing. Children are surrounded by the written word, read aloud to often, and encouraged to write to the best of their ability at every stage. Their earliest and most primitive attempts to write are valued and displayed -- whether they are strings of nonsensical letters, or stories full of misspelled words. So children in kindergarten are now writing stories and captions and poems, and joyfully, rather than only tracing letterforms on ditto sheets and stopping there. As children write, the teachers work with them to introduce and reinforce the next level of skill.

The phases children go through as they develop literacy this way are well understood and the research is widely available, so that I can glance at a child's early writing and tell you basically what stage they're in, and what the next skill to emerge will be. The teacher's job is then to create instruction that keeps the student moving along through the stages of literacy development, moving toward more standard writing every day.

Whole language, properly taught, does not exclude phonics and decoding. Those skills make up a large part of language instruction from the time it begins. Drill and practice is also included, as is correct spelling and sentence structure. The primary differences are that language is taught within a meaningful context (because children have something unique to express, or a strong interest they're reading about) rather than an arbitrary one (See Spot run. The cat sat on the hat. Sally is so silly).

The bottom line is that both methods of instruction -- traditional and whole-language -- work quite well when there are high standards applied at every level and when teachers do a decent job. I don't think literacy instruction is failing at the earliest levels; I believe it's happening sometime around the middle grades, say 4-7, which is when writing really needs to approach the quality standard found in the rest of the world. That's when spelling and composition need to start looking standardized, and editing skills need to be taught. The importance of good written communication is learned then. Once children already know how to express themselves in writing and have built a good vocabulary and understanding of basic language rules, then writing to accepted standards is the next step in the developmental progression. This is where we're falling down. Standards are not rigorous enough in the middle grades. High school continues to fail to challenge and demand higher-level writing skill, as well. Students are now arriving at college without understanding either the need or the technique to produce good written work.

I learned to write from boocoo places, but most of all from books. I didn't do much extracurricular shit beyond violin. Chilled with friends and all, but spent a shitload of time reading. I got into college back when smarts and a little effort were enough, before my lack of "diverse experience" would've sunk me.

I wonder if the college admissions process, unfairly skewed towards extracurricular activities in pursuit of the "well-rounded" student a hectic schedule creates, might encourage college applicants to ditch reading (or at least extracurricular reading -- who's got the time?). Could the college admissions process be thus destroying matriculating students' ability to write?

Hugh, you may be right about that. Interestingly (and off the topic entirely) that drive to recruit the 'well rounded' student largely had its origins in the desire of Ivy League colleges to keep out Jews and Southern Europeans in the early part of the 20th century.

The 'well rounded' idea began to arise when the pool of immigrants arriving in the US around the turn of the 20th century began to produce offspring who were capable of competing with the established WASP elite on college entrance exams. Suddenly a need was seen for measures of student quality beyond just academic ability. Gladwell wrote about this in the New Yorker recently.

I'm curious what "traditional" means, as there has been various theories and shifts over time. There are certainly more than two approaches as well. Even "phonics" is not a single method.

If people are barely literate, and their education has been focused on teaching to tests, how can anyone expect them not to be lazy and disrespectful?

At least I'm going to win in any competition with the illiterates. Job for life, innit!

I don't automatically consider uneducated folks lazy or disrespectful. As a matter of fact, I think they have to work twice as hard to make up for illiteracy or innumeracy. I've known lots of people who couldn't read or write, who work way harder than you or I do, and who show kindness and respect towards neighbors as well as strangers.

I feel the same way about the poorly educated. Tarring them all with the "lazy and disrespectful" brush is a reach I'm not comfortable with.

While any sample of kids might be barely literate, adept at cramming, lazy, and disrespectful, it's unfair and untrue to wedge them into a correlation..

I'm curious what "traditional" means, as there has been various theories and shifts over time. There are certainly more than two approaches as well. Even "phonics" is not a single method.

In my comment, it meant "catchall shorthand for everything that went before". Yeah, there have been copious methods throughout history. Methods based on visual memorization were the earliest; purely phonics-based methods came into vogue in the 1960s and predominated until around 1980. One of the diffuculties of teaching literacy with phonics emphasized is that English adheres to phonics rules only about 80% of the time; it's not a sufficient strategy for decoding all unfamiliar words or for constructing spellings of new words which you've only heard, never read. That's why the moniker 'whole language' was developed; it was meant to incorporate phonics, visual memory, kinetic learning, and meaning into literacy instruction.

Some language person, I forget who, pointed out that according to the rules of phonics, you could legitimately attempt to spell "fish" as "ghoti", using the "gh" as in "rough," the "o" as in "women", and the "ti" as in "station". Silly, but makes its point.

Miko, have you seen Kozol's new book on the failure of the education system for poor/minority students? I read an excerpt from it in Harper's a while back and it was rather eye-opening. I bring it up now not because it has much to do with language learning per se, but a lot of the piece I read was about how some of these new "no child left behind" programs focus on getting kids to repeat memorized knowledge and sit down and shut up, rather than any real pedagogy.

Your idea of phonics seems to be a bit bizarre, but c'est la vie.

Phonics consists of the skills of segmentation and blending, knowledge of the alphabetic code and an understanding of the principles which underpin how the code is used in reading and spelling.

In sum, the incontrovertible finding from the extensive body of local and international evidence-based literacy research is that for children during the early years of schooling (and subsequently if needed), to be able to link their knowledge of spoken language to their knowledge of written language, they must first master the alphabetic code - the system of grapheme-phoneme correspondences that link written words to their pronunciations. Because these are both foundational and essential skills for the development of competence in reading, writing and spelling, they must be taught explicitly, systematically, early and well.

Sorry, I should have included where that was from. The second is quoting a recent report from Australia, but I took both from the recent Rose Report: Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading

I don't automatically consider uneducated folks lazy or disrespectful. ...
I feel the same way about the poorly educated. Tarring them all with the "lazy and disrespectful" brush is a reach I'm not comfortable with.

I was referring to university students who sent text message type e-mails to their teachers. It is also possible that the student of the original post has a severe learning/reading disability, but can excel with books on tape and exam assistence (someone to read/write or spellcheck on a computer).

Two things stand out to me from my experiences in the U.S. educational system: 1) public education is highly variable from school to school, and the people who need the most often get the worst, and 2) teaching to tests inspires laziness and disrespect for oneself and others... If a student is used to being given a "study sheet" which lists the questions which will be on the test (in the same order, no less), how many do you think will try to actually learn and understand the topic?

When I wrote "poorly educated," I, too, was referring to university students who sent text message-type e-mails to their teachers. "Exam assistance" is as troubling as "teaching to tests." We could all use an assist now and then. What's the threshold?

"Teaching to tests" demonstrates laziness on the part of the system, and probably does inspire laziness in many students. I don't, however, see how it engenders disrespect for self and others.

I think we mostly agree, though, and as a phonics kid, I don't think Whole Language is a good idea (it may be dynamite in the hands of a great teacher, but it's dynamite in the hands of a bad teacher, too) but I have limited experience or knowledge of it. What I do notice, though, is that writeups of both techniques disparage the other.

And there's the meat of it! When the answer is obviously both, or whatever works, why are there sides? It's kids' education we're talking about, something that the egos of educators should have nothing to do with. But with lines like these drawn in the sand, nobody's gonna budge. Kids lose; we all do.

I should note, before y'all take this post as evidence of the failing of the US education system, that I'm in Australia. But I'm sure it's all much of a muchness.

Exam assistance is having someone read the words that appear like a jumble of nonsense to someone with dyslexia, or to a blind person who does not read Braille. It is not giving assistance with the answers! Having a physical inability to read text does not mean that a person should not be allowed access to higher education. If you find that troublesome, then I guess you think people with disabilities should all go to the sheltered workshop (and screw the blind lawyers, etc. who had special assistance in completing their degrees. What cheats, eh?)...

Perhaps my "disrespect for self and others" comment sounds a little weird, but there is a huge difference between filling in a circle on a piece of paper and expressing your own opinion about something. Schools which teach to the test do not give their students the experience of developing confidence in their own abilities. Some students will excel despite the school system, but overall these students seem have a much more difficult time to articulate themselves outside of their peer groups. Who will give them the cheat sheet for their job applications? (Oh wait, I've actually heard about those...more literate relatives will.)

And Jimbob, the studies I referred to were from Australia and England. Apparently the problems of low literacy resulting from the moves away from explaining the alphabetic code have not been limited to the U.S. educational system.

I'm glad I asked what the threshold was. I have no problem with "exam assistance" for the blind. Guess what you want about what evil plans I have for blind students, but in the end, it was my misunderstanding of a pretty wide-open sounding term for it's context, a term I was unfamiliar with. Sorry for not following.

Haha! "It's!"

Hoist by my own pet peeve!

In my opinion, a big part of what I think is the problem with all these strident lay opinions on education is that people are too quick to generalize based upon their own experience.

Strident lay opinions? People who have gone through the educational system certainly have a right to express opinions, as well as those of us with teaching experience.

If the schools changed how they started teaching reading to children and then 13 years later you find incoming freshmen are having problems with the written word, it might be a good time to re-examine the teaching methods, no? Of course it really could be text messaging, but it would be wrong to simply assume that connection and not examine other possible causes. And, it seems from recent research, many people are suggesting it was the change from teaching how to decode properly.

Okay, I will let this go now. If I don't stop talking about education, I will end up never stopping, and will undoubtedly piss many people off. (^_^)