To a certain degree, English can never be completely bound by rules and vocabulary lists. It’s a living language, evolving with time, bringing in new terms, seeing old terms, old rules changing. Those linguistic fuddy-duddies (like myself) may cavil at some of the changes, but, damn, better that we grow than that we stagnate, and better that we accept new things than that we become a laughing-stock, like the French Academy.
Still, I’m not sure that using SMS abbreviations should be, ah, acceptible in school assignments.
The teenager’s essay which caused the problem began:
“My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 : kids FTF. ILNY, it’s a gr8 plc.”
In translation:
“My summer holidays were a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face. I love New York. It’s a great place.”
Uh … no.
(via BoingBoing) (Title with apology to Adam.)
The sad thing is, it’s not even that great of an essay even in straight English. I’m all for the evolution of a language, but this is not evolution as I see it.
Well, he did capitalize the first, um… “word” of a sentence! That’s something, anyway.
Didn’t we go through something like this with Ebonics a while back? Perhaps SMS-speak should be considered a dialect, and not acceptable for an English composition.
But then kids will be demanding classes in SMS. “It’s my cultural heritage!”