TXTNG S RUENING R CiVLiZaTiOn... *Rant*

Ok, I do understand the usefulness of shorthand and have in fact developed my own; it looks a little like this:



I developed it my first year of college when I realized that I wrote at speeds rivaling many caffeinated snails and that writing for hours a day made my hands too sore to play music or paint/draw. The method itself works for two reasons: 1) the human brain is an amazing information processor that can understand the whole without all the details and 2) because I am fortunate to possess a high level of aural memory, and I wrote it, I have the original dialogue running in my head at the same time. Even with experience of this brilliant method, and a little formal training in medieval abbreviation (oh yeah, see how that was spelled correctly??), I cannot figure out what the hell people mean when they write in text language. I do understand that omitting parts of speech or insignificant letters is a time-saving mechanism while texting in an informal setting, I read emails, submitted assignments, facebook statuses, and entire blog posts written in this type of hieroglyphic.

Here follows an example, copied and pasted from the source: (minus names)
"Btw ____ u dont have to explained tat ya r already happy cuz i already kw ya guys are happy lol n i kw how how it is when ur guy wk a lot n no date in a while cuz ____ used to wk night shit or all day n on call even days off"

One more, from my university inbox: (before anyone asks, this wasn't from any of my freshmen kids; this was from a fellow grad student)

"i missd class was their ne thing important that i need to kw thx, ______"



My thoughts on the topic:

"Kthxbai" was coined by a website dedicated to mocking animals' inability to type in proper English.
(it's even missing a freaking nasal consonant--how does that work?? Don't tell me it's syncopation, because it isn't even followed by a liquid or subsequent syllables with a/u/o to drop)

"Fail" is a verb, either auxiliary or main depending on the context, whereas
"epic" is actually a noun, referring to poetic form and content.
"like" can be any form of speech but the way it's most used now, meaning either a verb or, like, an audible pause. We have punctuation in written speech for the exact purpose that it is supposed to represent a silence. (by the way, I have used all three of these at different times, so I know, and I am consciously cutting them out of my vocabulary)

U/R/Y/B/C/K are letters that have been incorporated into the visual transmission of the English language (as far back as freaking Beowulf) by mixing with other similar symbols to form words and were not intended to stand alone. This method, therefore, would be unlike pictorial or calligraphic languages that make use of independent characters and/or diacritical marks to indicate/differentiate words.

Sentences are differentiated from one another by certain grammatical symbols that indicate the type of speech communicated: i.e. periods, exclamation points, question marks, semi-colons, and ellipses. (Please end a sentence with a preposition; then, at least, it is providing a formulaic--in recent years anyway--ending that I can recognize. Besides, it's functioning as an adverb in that instance anyway.) Along with this, subordinate clauses, conjunctions, lists, and to some degree rhetorically emphasized sections, are delineated by colons, commas, and ampersands.

Spelling is more than just something with which to torture kids at school.

Books are physical, bound objects one carries around that are made of varying types of wood pulp, ink, glue, and thread. (Also, "as the page turns" does not refer to the length of time it takes a webpage to load...)



Language is beautiful, can be used efficiently by anyone in any social circumstance, and should not be shortchanged because of time or convenience, especially since so much else in our society is. It is difficult, and I struggle with it myself, but it remains infinitely worth the effort. I will leave you with an excerpt from someone as linguistically cynical as I am, spoken almost half a century ago: