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I’m LMAO. Y? Just cuz it’s gr8 2 C U! Lol!

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I remember when all this were fields. And young people had respect for their elders. And dash it all, people spoke English PROPERLY in my day!

Yes, I’m sure we’ve all heard the same old rant – if not from grandparents then from the old bean at the bus stop when he’s just seen one of today’s yoof slouch moodily past with his jeans halfway down his backside. Tsk, this country…

As for text speak, don’t even go there, I hear [some of] you cry. Mind you – and I may be misguided here – but I would actually be quite surprised to find people still send texts saying: “gr8 c u later!” since smartphones took over the world. Thank you, mini Qwerty keyboard.

I also don’t totally buy the fact that teenagers actually were submitting exam papers with such text-speak abbreviations – and I believe even less that some right-on examiners were deeming that to be just fine, as long as the kidz said what they meant to say because “communication is all that counts”.

Along the same lines, it’s long been the preserve of English language preservation enthusiasts that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are doing the great unwashed yoof (sorry, I can’t help myself) no favours at all when it comes to communicating. In case you’re confused by the inclusion of the latter, incidentally, there is great fun to be had reading the comments on YouTube clips – sometimes more so than the actual video clip itself. More on that later.

Unlike Facebook, of course, there is a 140 character limit on Twitter. The above-mentioned English language preservation enthusiasts are complaining that this is yet another example of the English language being dumbed down – that we’re all going to get so used to such minuscule bite-sized snippets of information, observation and opinion that we get frightened off by any text taking up a space longer than two lines.

But in fact, the message limit of Twitter is nothing new. Once upon a time, we all had to communicate via telegrams if we wanted to get a message a long way in a hurry. So economy of language was even more crucial then than it is now, not least from a cost point of view. Over the decades, we have done very nicely thank you with short, crisp messages without any detriment whatsoever to the English language.

So all this claptrap about modern technology being the ruin of it is, as I say, claptrap. Indeed, writing well for Twitter can be a real skill. I follow a few people (often comedians, as it happens) who have got this skill down to a very fine art. It is, of course, very easy to be unoriginal and simply bland – but to be able to provoke a reaction in just 140 characters is surely quite an achievement.

For that reason, I cannot agree that Twitter is in some way bad or pointless. It does not dumb down, nor does it drag the English language down into banal obscurity. In fact, it has the potential to do quite the reverse.

Just for the sheer comedy value, I’d like to share with you a fantastically funny skit based on an argument that occurred in the comments section on YouTube about One Direction’s Harry Styles and Justin Bieber. This is the stupider side of typing a comment without first engaging the brain. The skit is performed by two aged thespians, which only lends it a more surreal but hilarious edge. If you’re offended by the F-word, however, don’t watch it...

 

By Ashley Morrison

Ashley is a copywriter, editor and blogger

Follow him on Twitter
 

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