Friday, November 23, 2007

The growing idiocy of online users


"Me fail English? That's unpossible!"

Ah, the immortal words of young Ralph Wiggum. Sadly, it accurately depicts many of the students in today's public school system. Children and teenagers these days have been twisted and seduced by the glamour of the pop star/movie star life and as such, put education on the back burners. After all, you don't have to be able to spell "cat" with a C if you have a million bucks, right? You have other people for such remedial tasks.

But only a very select few of people will ever make it to that kind of fame and fortune, and in the end, their inability to construct a complete sentence with any meaning will knock them back down to the dark abyss of poverty.

Far too much am I chatting with someone on the Internet that has no regard for the proper use of the English language. Rather, American English. The two are indeed different. Too often do I see "wus up!" or "how r u?" or any other number of poorly spelled and rather incomplete thoughts. This saddens me to no end. Has the computer and technology made the general population even more stupid? Or is it simply a case of laziness? In my opinion, typing "how r u?" takes far longer than "How are you?" I don't have to think about using proper grammar and spelling. I have to think about typing in shorthand. You see my point.

I'm not talking about the commonly used "LOL," "BRB," or "BTW." I am guilty of using those. I'm talking about using short hand in every sentence that one types. The combination of letters and numbers to form words like "Great!" or "mate." That's what saddens me. Does it really take so much effort to type correctly?

Typing in this shorthand does nothing constructive for today's youth. It teaches them that they can be lazy when it comes to communication. Where will that lead them in life? How will their professor (on the off chance they even get into a college [or graduate high school for that matter]) react when they hand in their term paper titled "Y my 5ummer wuz gr8." I pity that professor.

On par with this shorthanded typing is the so called 1337 speak. In this case, numbers are substituted for the letters they most closely resemble. In case you cannot figure it out, 1337 is "leet." Leet supposedly means that one is better than another. They are elite. But this spelling (or misspelling, if you prefer) only proves their inability to communicate with any type of proficiency. They are not elite. They are merely another member of a society that is becoming exponentially dumber with each passing day.

How can one function in society when they can only type with numbers and short hand? It boggles my mind. It is unfortunate that this not only affects teenagers and children on the Internet, but the adults as well. I speak to too many adults that use the same type of poor grammar and spelling and wonder how they ever made it in life. I don't understand how someone can force their brain to do this.

So I end with that; grateful for the few friends that I have that understand proper American English and how to incorporate it into their typing. Thank you to those. For everyone else... go to school, you lazy morons!

The only people I give leeway to when it comes to misuse of grammar or spelling are foreigners that may not be experts at the American English language. Most foreigners are taught English (taught by British instructors). This can vary greatly from what we use here in the United States. I'm still not a fan of 1337 speak, though. Don't do it.

2 comments:

Daddy Cool said...

I tlly agr...th usg of shrthnd tpng is stpd. I wld nvr do it...hte it lk th plge.

Well that was stupid...I am swedish, and I honestly gotta say that I type better english than the better part of my english msn buddies. Is that not wierd or what??
Mark my dear friend, I promise you, I will never fall into that kind of silly typing...bah, hate it.

Daddy Cool said...

Forgot to say...you Mark type excellent english.

I learn a little something everytime I chat with you.

Thank you for that :)