Schools failing to teach English proper, like.

flutterflye wrote: »

There are alot of teachers out there that will be able to give you a million examples of this.

I have spoken to many myself, and this is the main reason for my concern.
They detailed regular problems with essays and homework being handed up full of text speak, and poor general English skills.

That's crazy i have to say...maybe there will be an English, Irish and Text Speak option on the Leaving Cert in the future.:eek:

Permabear wrote: »

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But when these kids grow up they will be the ones marking exams and they will be more open towards txtspeak. Over time it will likely gain acceptance in formal environments and the language will adapt to it.

Right now it is a failing of the education system but evolution takes [perceived] mistakes and runs with them.

I'm just after doing my Leaving Cert and English really is becoming a problem. The teacher that I had couldn't explain anything, she would just hand out sheets and we would spend the class in silence reading them. Many girls that would have got an A in the Junior Cert didn't even pass the mocks, doing better in Higher level French than English! One day the teacher attempted to have a grammar lesson but got muddled herself over where to put apostrophes. Once she wrote out notes on the blackboard straight from a book and when I asked her one of the words she wrote down she didn't know the meaning herself. Most of the people in our class had to pay for grinds and anyone who couldn't afford it were stuck with her inadequate, frustrating attempts at "teaching".

So yeah, as someone fresh from the system, unless you have your own interest in reading (which frankly, the majority don't) you aren't going to grasp grammar that well at all.

I can't understand why mobile phones are getting the blame, because everyone my age grew up with mobile phones, yet only some use text-speak. I used to use it a bit when text messages were more expensive but now that there are free texts its obsolete, except among the lazy.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

except among the lazy.

It's lazy in the same way driving a car is lazy. You could walk but it's the fastest way from A to B.

It's a faster way to text and requires less scrolling on small mobile screens. I don't see this as a bad thing. Kids using it in school is stupid, using it in texts is smart (although I don't use it out of habit [and some elitism]).

We don't have grammar lessons at all in Irish schools. The most I ever remember being told was "nouns are things, verbs are "doing" words, adjectives describe nouns and adverbs describe verbs", which is fine for kids but once you try to use more sophisticated language, you're liable to make mistakes.

It also makes it difficult to learn other languages. I'm studying languages at college now, and a lot of the people in my class had problems with grammar lectures because we didn't actually know what a "relative pronoun", a "subordinate clause" or a "demonstrative adjective" (etc.) was in English, let alone in French.

In French primary schools, the kids have grammar lessons - why on earth don't we?!

Yes its a disgrace how d english languige has bin BASTARDIZED by textspeak and d like we need 2 hold on 2 our languige and not loose it, b coz if we loose it well never find it agin..:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Having just sat my LC I can corroborate that article. There's a surprisingly large amount of people who have serious issues with English grammar.

The worst mistakes
Would/Could of... instead of Would/Could have
Ludicrous spelling mistakes like teh
Complete disregard of register and tone. Take for example a Hamlet essay where someone wrote "Hamlet was on about how Claudius killed his dad"
Your/You're/They're/Their/There mistakes
General spelling errors
Punctuation errors and fear of a little something called paragraphing.

All of these little mistakes could have been prevented by simply teaching people grammar in primary school instead of the "noun is a thing, verb is doing something, adjective is describing something" rudimentary grammar education that people currently receive. We had to spend four weeks learning English grammar terms in 1st Year French because the vast majority of people had never heard of things like "Conjugations" or "Infinitives". Even in sixth year I guarantee that if you visit the average HL English class and ask "What is a present participle?" you'll get a blank look back from everyone.

Even worse is HL Maths where people go in to the exam not even knowing what a "function" is but that's for another thread.

Permabear wrote: »

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No, I'm suggesting it's only a problem as long as it's not widely recognised or understood.

Like any slang word or phrase it means nothing if the majority of people don't understand it and as a result they won't accept it as a viable word/phrase. However as more people learn of the word and begin to use it in their daily conversations it becomes more acceptable and eventually becomes part of that language.

Text-speak is a slang language. It's extremely common among younger generations and as they grow up it'll become common among older generations. The younger generations will become the older generations who will accept text-speak as a valid form of communication.

flutterflye wrote:

For shorter distances, I'd drive due to having 2 very active and rambunctious children, the weather, time restrictions etc...

These are your parameters for when deciding whether or not to drive.

The parameters for deciding whether or not to use text-speak are character limitations, speed, medium size, informal etc.

If it makes sense to use an abbreviated and faster form of the English language then text-speak is a perfectly valid option, if you need something more formal, aren't limited by size of medium or length etc. then traditional English is the best option.

Two tools for two jobs.

I think mobile phones are to blame, but social networking too. Twenty years ago not many people actually wrote to communicate once they finished school, unless their job required it. But now, people communicate in a written manner much more than they used to. Text messages but also facebook and forums are used to communicate things through writing which before would have been done verbally, either face-to-face or on the phone.
So I think maybe in the past when people only wrote now and then, they didn't mind taking the time to make sure they were using grammar and punctuation fairly well.
But now some people text and type on facebook all the time and perhaps can't be bothered about being careful with their words all the time and making sure everything is written out fully and correctly. And now we're seeing young people for whom this is the norm.

RE: the language evolving. Yes languages always seem to get simpler. As many have said, look at how much more complex Shakespeare's English is.
But in the last decade or so the nature of the simplifications has changed in an important way. Mistakes like saying "your" instead of "you're" reveal a lack of awareness about the structure of the language. Even on an almost unconscious level, most people with a decent grasp of English know that "you're" is short for "you are" and are aware of how the pronoun and verb in this case work, even if we couldn't express it.

But for someone who just uses "your" all the time, there's no logic as to why they use the same word in different contexts, and they're thus not aware of the structures behind the language. If things carry on in this manner (and I'm not saying it definitely will) the language will simplify to a point where people only know that certain sounds only represent concepts in a simplistic representational manner (eg. "your" refers to a person that you're talking to in some way), but have no awareness of syntax and sentence structure which, even though we're not taught too much about it, most people with decent English get the gist of in an instinctive manner. The same thing goes for mistakes like "been" instead of "being" and "should of" instead of "should've". Shortening words or using simpler ones isn't so bad in itself, but mistakes that stop people from having a sense of the structure underlying English are much worse to me.
Shakespeare might be difficult to grasp at first, but the system behind it is remarkably similar to modern good English. Shakespeare might therefore be able to understand a well-written Boards post (not without some difficulty), but not a txtspk facebook comment.

As others have said, the way grammar has been taught in primary school (I'm told it's better now) doesn't help us to see how the language works as it's too simplistic. In the past, people would have got an intuitive sense of the system by reading proper English, but unfortunately even a kid who reads Harry Potter or Twilight is also bombarded by txtspeak.

The King of Moo wrote: »

In the past, people would have got an intuitive sense of the system by reading proper English, but unfortunately even a kid who reads Harry Potter or Twilight is also bombarded by txtspeak.

This constant bashing of popular books like Harry Potter and Twilight really annoys me. First off, Harry Potter shouldn't even be in the same category as Twilight. Anyone that has read all the books can see what a truly talented author J.K Rowling is. She constructed a plot that lasted over seven books that had the whole world waiting for. All because the books are popular it shouldn't demerit their worth.

I think most people hate Twilight because it is associated with emos and all that crap but Stephanie Meyer did create characters that literally millions of people fell in love with. It takes a lot more than good grammar to create such world wide loved books. I want to study in English in college but the only thing that turns me off is literature snobs that look down on some writers.

Thankfully, our friends in the European Commission have devised a plan to make standard written English better.

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world!