Freelance writer and tutor Mary Kolesnikova, writing in the LATimes, and I are desperately afraid of the same thing: cellphones and the Web are killing the English language (and probably most of the others as well).
The cause for my earth-shattering depression is an April 25 Pew Research Center study that polled 12- to 17-year-olds on their attitudes about writing. A heart-stopping 38% said they let chat-speak — such as LOL (for “laughing out loud”), ROFL (“rolling on the floor laughing”), BRB (“be right back”), TTYL (“talk to ya later”) — slip into essays and homework.
Also last month, the U.S. Department of Education released the Nation’s Report Card on Writing 2007. The results suggested that only 33% of eighth-graders demonstrated abilities at or above proficiency level. James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress, introduced these findings with a comment about “the slow destruction of the basic unit of human thought — the sentence.” ROFL, James, the sentence is dead and buried. AOL Instant Messenger is dancing on its grave.
“Linguistic butchery while texting is one thing. In school assignments, it is quite another,” says Kolesnikova, who even takes on that sacred site, icanhascheezburger, with its silly pictures and LOLspeak captions, as aiding and abetting the crime. (Actually, I sort of like ICHC, but I don’t look to as a grammar or style guide, either.)
Perhaps this is an overreaction. I have all kinds of “speak” that I use in all kinds of situations: Church speak, chat speak, e-mail speak, work speak, friend speak, with all their individual emphases and vocabulary. But at least I know the difference when it comes to actual writing, IMHO.
Oops.