Okay, I had to take a course incommunications at University this past semester. All well and good. Our last speech was to be on something we really felt strongly in favor of, or against.

I have a thing against text-speak, though I'm just a guilty of using pieces of it. So, this wound up in my speech. Please keep in mind that this was given orally for class and that exageration makes for better speaches. Please, I'm not posting this to offend anyone, just to share a point of view and welcome commentary :P

So, as funny of a question as this is to ask on a forum, how does everyone else feel on text-speak?

At first i hated it with a passion seeing as i had no idea what stuff meant for example ROTFLMAO but now that i know a little more i have used a bit myself especially when im texting on my phone. The butttons on the phone are really small so to type out some of the stuff i want to say would take forever so this abbreviating of words makes it so much easier and faster and since i usually text while i am at work supposedly "working" texting fast is a good thing.

I saw a cute commercial a few days ago for a cell phone company where a mother and daughter are having a conversation about the bill or something and the girl only talks in text speak and they have subtittles in the bottom so you can see what she is saying

Ok, i didnt read everything.. but yeah.

Im against it. Especially when people use it in forums and stuff. I can understand it with sms's cause then you have limited characters and it sucks typing on a phone, but really.

Im against it.

One good rant deserves another, DL, so here it goes:

Text-speak is like a form of pigeon-English that you'd use in a bazaar where most people can't speak much of each other's language. It communicates a few short, simple "thought-bites". Only it's used more because of laziness than an inability to speak English (I hope!).

Back in Victorian times, for example, people wrote letters and diaries with care (after all, it was a lot of work to do it by hand), and often they seem to have had something worthwhile to say. Letters of famous or wise people were collected and published, and are still worth reading. They provide an insight into the people and the time that they lived in, like Samuel Pepys diary (and yeah, I know that Pepys was pre-Victorian).

Now we seem to have an overwhelming quantity of communication, with very little meaningful content. Almost everyone seems to be chatting on cell phones or on line during every waking moment. But what the heck could they possibly spend that much time talking about? Pop stars, maybe? I think I don't want to know!

The English language isn't particularly poetic, but it has a huge vocabulary, so writers can chose verbs and adjectives that put exactly the right spin on what they want to say. JKR knows that. Just imagine a Harry Potter book written in text-speak, and you get the picture.

Text-speak has its place, when typing out quick messages on little bitty phone buttons, or sometines at work, as Remy rightly points out, but when you have something worthwhile to say, it's totally inadequate. And it makes you look stupid, too.

Amen to what's been said so far.

Text-speak really does have its place in a few select mediums. Cellphone texting is one. Who doesn't hate trying to type things out in such a clumsy, number-pad format? Another is a cooperative action games which happen to lack voice-communication at the moment (be that due to a developer's oversight, a lack of player bandwidth, etc.). When the difference between 1 second and 3 means life or death, and you have to type to your comrades to alert them of the danger, then text-speak becomes appropriate.

However, there are some mediums in which using text speak is not only unneccessary, but can actually become an impediment to communication. I'd like to highlight what DL said: "a series of oft inconsistent abbreviations." Now don't get me wrong, when it comes down to it I can text-speak with the best of 'em (although I didn't learn it on a cellphone, I learned it trying to do some honest-to-God pen and paper role-playing under the desk in art class back in high school). However, the sheer inconsistency and volatility of text-speak -something which derives, no doubt, from a lack of standard rules- can trip up even the best texters at times and makes it a formidable task for the uninitiated to enter the arena.

But then again... my opinion might very well be tainted by the fact that when my fingers fly over a keyboard I can be rather long-winded. As this, only my second post here, is screaming. I need to head over to the introductions area. *cuts self off*

Woot, I was wondering if this would be a hot topic or not!

Anyway, yeah, I understand the need to use a variety of shorthand when text messaging. Bah. Shows my age too. I do not enjoy texting. Not at all. I grumble when I need to type in new names to my phone just for phone numbers, can you imagine me texting?

And yes, Sylvana makes a good point about playing on MMORPGs and the need of quick back and forth. To which, I also argue my point. I'm still in the dark ages of Dial-Up! If its three seconds between life and death on game on my computer, I'm toast anyhow!

And Twilight makes some interesting points on this too. I agree, we do talk a lot and say nothing. But is that a good reason to not bother typing out the nothing that we're saying in full sentences? At the very least in e-mails and on Forums? Yes, IM is a fast paced arena, yes, that has a place for text speak. The same with text messaging and video gaming. Even, sometimes, reluctantly, an e-mail can be sent that way. But on forums that post is bound to last for months to come. Many people view it. Everyone takes something different from it. Wouldn't it make more sense, even if your saying nothing at all, to be clear and as conssise as you could be in making that statement?

Of course, being clear would help to if I could only spell... :blink:

This is disturbingly relevant to the topic of text speak... and I really don't know what to say about it other than that I sure don't want to be the poor guy whose parents first succeed in this kind of endeavor. Afterall, I'm sure we'll start seeing more and more of this.

-full article

They couldn't name him 4real? What can I say except OMG? :lol:

(Hahaha, Twilight XD)

Well, me being a grammar freak and all, I have to say....text-speech should stick to texting and rushed messages (This has been mentioned before, so I'm not going to rant. It's already all been said).

But when you're roleplaying on the forum, is it really that hard to add punctuation, quotation, correct capitalization, and perhaps even a bit of -gasp- forethought? Sigh. It just....ooks so much nicer. And punctuation and such really affect the way your post impacts the readers. Say someone wrote a paragraph in this manner:

"jane & martha went 2 the stor 2day but they were to well, thoughtless to return with the milk I asked for said jim"

I for one am probably going to just skim through the rest of that paragraph, yawning. Watch this:

"'Jane and Martha went to the store today, but they were too--too...well, too thoughtless, really, to return with the milk I asked for,' complained Jim."

See, that's much better. :D (Okay, strange example, but I'm a bit tired.)

Sorry if that seems a bit off the topic....My real point is that if you take the time to make it sound more professional and proper, you create a much more desired effect in the writing itself.

Maybe not everyone holds roleplaying in quite as high a regard as I do. *shrug* I just like it when it sounds like you put some thought into it. I admit though, I do get lazy sometimes, too!

Actually, one of my objectives when I started RP'ing here at the LC was to practice a bit of creative writing, and stimulate my imagination. I hadn't written anything much, or RP'd, for a long time and I was starting to wonder if I'd forgotten how.

So unless I'm in an awfully big hurry, I try to think about my posts a bit, and make them reasonably comprehensible. I know that not everyone is into that sort of thing, and that doesn't bother me, but it is kind of a pain when I have to stop and look up unusual text-speak abbreviations on the internet.

Wait, wait wait . . . you mean there are actually idiots who actually TALK like how they do when they txt each other? WTFRIGGOMFGBANANA?? :mellow:

Who the heck would do that? Seriously? IDIOTS!

The only time I have ever heard someone use txt talk was from my friend Bre . . . which was lol . . . but she was being an idiot at the time and actually sounded it out . . . didn't actually say L O L . . . :mellow:

I used to do that but not many people seem to be into big proper imaginitive RP posts so blah . . . :P

It's a danm shame when people are in too big of a hurry to express themselves properly, espcecially when roleplaying. I would rather roleplay with someone using complete sentences with an attempt at punctuation. I will admit that I am not big on capitalization, but I do it when I roleplay because I don't know you people personally. i expect my bff to forgive me for righting like this when i dont email her 4 three months, but if im going to write to and with strangers i want to look my best. And I want my character to look her best. So yeah I think about what I post and even plot out a thread before I start it. I think it's more fun that way. It sickens me (I have a degree in English) what tweens have made of our language and mostly I just phase out with I see text-speech. And no, I don't text myself.

I totally agree with DL and I'm going to add a small rant myself.
Why don't they teach kids how to use proper English, spelling and grammar, in school now??? When I was 9 or 10 we used to have weekly spelling tests and have to do really boring stuff like times tables in your head - without the use of a calculator!!! Gosh kids, can you imagine.....?

I have to use proper written English and grammar in my job and I find it so frustrating that young people (and even people in their twenties) fail to have a proper grasp of their so-called mother tongue. It's embarrassing enough that most of us English speakers can't negotiate another language, but I guess when you realise that we can't even handle our own properly, it's no great surprise!

I'm right there with you Sama as well, how hard is it to write properly, even if you are RPing. Maybe it's just me, but I write how I think, if I had to abbreviate everything it'd take me twice as long!!!

Rant over :tongue:

i'm so with you guys on that one. my little sis is 15 and she has awful grammar (we're French out of my siblings who speak french-4- only 2 of us speak English {we went to English school} so she goes to french school but its the same kind of deal) and I looked over one of her assignments and it was awful, worse than that actually, I had rewrite the whole thing for her because all she was writing in was text-talk, nothing was understandable, the grammar was basically non existent. It was pretty sad to see considering that my brother and I are excellent in both English and French and she can barely get by with a language shes spoken her whole life.

I must say Remy that that comertial is very funny! I don't always get what some of it means. Like LAMO! I think it is, but I get the simple stuff like, brb, lol, g2g.

I'm a writer, and this is something I've been complaining about for quite some time. While it may look, on the surface, like poeple are just shortening words and sentences to save time and keystrokes, what's really happening is people aren't even bothering to learn the real words or spellings at all--ask any college professor. Many say, "We understand each other. That's what communication is all about, not grammatical correctness." If they ever bothered to crack a dictionary, they'd know that Articulation is synonymous with Expression. (Look it up if you don't believe me.)

I remember as little as fifteen years ago (No, kids, the internet has not been around forever) loosing points on a History test for mispellings in an essay question answer--it made no difference how well I knew who fought what battle where and when, so long as I couldn't express myself on an educated level. Today, parents take teachers to task for every mark against their children. It is not the children who are in need of help or at fault for being lazy, but the teachers who are at fault for crushing someone's poor baby's fragile self-esteem.

In a perfect world, students unable to read or write on a third grade level (and that's what we're talking about when we talk about textspeak) would be sent back to school, along with the parents who raised them, and forced to write on the blackboard with a rusty nail "I shall not contribute to the death of the English language," until they figure out why they are writing 'shall not' instead of 'will not.'
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That was a fun rant.

[rant]

Oh you are so right there! I'm so furious at my school . . . It's dropping all the english courses apart from just Core English because it want to put in more science classes WHICH WE DONT NEED!

Basically everything I have learnt to do with the english language over the last 5 years I HAVE GONE OFF AND TAUGHT MYSELF!!! And I did Core english and Literature (which I fortunately took as a headstart class so I wont miss out on it next year) . . . so obviously my grammar and punctuation ect. is miserable but friggen heck . . . half my friends don't understand my because I use too many big words for their minute vocabulary and JUST GRRR.

I dropped english for next year for the mere fact that it's the most pointless class in exsistence . . . I spent most of it this year doing work for other classes because all the other students were at a waaaay lower level and ergo I managed to get everything done within the first ten minutes of the class. <_<

It's not so much the teachers . . . My Literature teacher was excellent . . . it's the courses that need to change! THEY ARE WAAAY TO EASY TO PASS!

Unfortunately I think that English classes are going the same was as History is down here in Aus! They are becomming non-exsistent . . . I know nothing adout history! AND I LOVE HISTORY!! *twitch*

[/rant]

Rant, rant, rant, rant rant.
:D

I'm quite proper when it comes to english. I'm forever correcting my friends and stuff. I've als cut back on writing "slang style" because it affects my speech and my essays and stories and such.

People are so lazy, they cant' be bothered to speak or write properly.
Blah.

Ranting is fun :P

I can bounce between slang and proper english really easily so I don't bother writing proper in places such as MSN with my friends because we talk that fast that I would sound rather random if I were to write everything out correctly . . . though even then the amount of slang I used isn't very high compared to the majority of people these days. :)

HAHA I totally cant talk properlly . . . my head moves to fast for my mouth so my words either merge together . . . become entirely different words or I just skip words altogether. Fortunately my friends and even some of my teachers have all learnt how to speak Shonk! :D

I also jumble up my words. One in about 8 sentences of mine is actually correct the first time. Yep. My brain is way too fast for my mouth.
Oh well. I end up talking to myself most of the time.

Oh I can do the same thing. I can talk in textspeak, type in 1337, and generally make myself incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't know all those little web dialects... but then I can speak decent English too. I can drop in and out of web dialects at will, and honestly... I don't care for all the abbreviations and such.

I'd rather speak in informal (as in imperfect sentence structure, slight grammar mistakes etc) English, like the great majority of people did... say 20 years ago. When I chat or roleplay online, I mimic how I speak IRL (in real life, for those who didn't know.). I LIKE English, and I kinda wish I was better about using proper grammar all the time, but I DISlike text speak... except in a few situations... like texting... which I personally think is stupid, and avoid using.

Most people online who mainly speak with textspeak and other internet English dialects... I simply ignore. I used to go on gaia, and roleplay, chat and other things there, but then when they started commercializing more, it brought more people... but those people were HORRIBLE with the way they treated the English language. I no longer go on Gaia, or places like The Keep, because of the rising trend of bad English.

I honestly hope that the Leaky Cauldron doesn't fall to the same fate as those places... otherwise I will move on from here, and hope I can find another place for those who like a bit of English on their internet.

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