Maybe it’s just me, a grumpy former newspaper writing coach.
But I fear our love affair with Twitter, text messaging and even those ubiquitous emoticons is poisoning the English language. Mari Smith’s Twitter Lingo Demysified includes a list of the most popular terms that many active Twitterers use in everyday tweets, to help them keep their posts within the 140-character limit.
Even if you don’t tweet, you’re certainly familiar with these:
OMG = Oh my God/gosh
4U = for you
b/c = because
Thx = thanks
BTW = by the way
I plead guilty to using those abbreviations not only in my tweets, but in emails, too. Somebody, slap me!
They’re also showing up all over the Internet—in comments at blogs, on classified ads on Craigslist, and on people’s Facebook walls.
That’s not the worst of it. An article in the Wall Street Journal said hiring managers are seeing a frightening number of too-casual job-hunters, mostly college graduates and recent grads, writing email messages such as thank-you notes “that contain shorthand language and decorative symbols, while others are sending hasty and poorly thought-out messages to and from mobile devices.”
Recruiters say that will immediately kill your chances to be hired because they hint at immaturity and questionable judgment. The Chicago Tribune reports that those same abbreviations are even showing up in college essays and term papers.
Yesterday, on Day One of the Social Media Summit in Chicago, sponsored by Ragan Communications, I attended an excellent break-out session on writing for the web and print. Jim Ylisela, a longtime writing instructor, demonstrated how words matter, whether we’re reading a magazine, skimming a website or blog, listening to a podcast or watching a video.
After his session, I told him my concerns about the dangers of Twitter-speak and text-speak and asked him to share his thoughts. That’s one of the reasons, he said, companies are hungry for writing classes for their employees, particularly younger hires.
If you tweet, do you find Twitter lingo and text-speak accidentally slipping into other things you write?
Do you get annoyed like I do when you read tweets that are so jam-packed with Twitter shorthand that they resemble Chinese hieroglyphics, and you have to read them three times before you finally figure out what the writer is trying to say? Or do you simply give up and move on?
Doesn’t this sort of defeat the whole purpose of using Twitter to amass an army of followers who can hardly wait to see what we have to say?
I wasn’t all that sure what to do with my twitter, so I’ve started using it to Tweet 140 character, independent stories. The full post explaining the project is here: http://www.tracymarchini.com/2008/09/tweet-me-story.html
IMHO, twitter-speak and text-speak cause problems for people (like job-hunters) stuck between the new-school and old-school, who are operating in both worlds simultaneously. no doubt about that; writing LOL on an application won’t get you very far.
however, I’d argue that focusing on these issues alone is missing the point. namely, that language (as it always does) is evolving around new ways of writing and new ways of interacting. those who put the energy into adapting with the language will be more successful in writing good stuff not only now, but into the future. those who don’t will struggle.
that’s the point, I think: learn, don’t bemoan. amke sense?
AMEN!
Here I thought I was alone in the Sea of Acronyms, doing my best to merely tread H2O!
Sadly, I have caught myself slipping into ‘tweetspeak’ in other things I write. And despite working for myself I must confess my ‘boss’ was ready to let me go!
Here’s my hope… that twitter and text-speak don’t actually poison the English language. With luck they will only EXPAND it.
Not totally optimistic though… still trying to wrap my head around the fact that my 15 year granddaughter has NEVER had a teacher that cared about proper spelling. Perhaps they all saw it coming?!?
L8er,(HA! couldn’t resist)
~~Mary K
Follow me @marykw
I can see your point about Twitter and text messaging. However, I think the problem with people using this method for more formal speech is an over-all misunderstanding of what is approapiate when. I keep seeing job applicants at department stores and other places showing up in the most casual attire imaginable. I asked one manager if he would hire the slouching, mumbling, gang-colors wearing brat who had just left. “Do I LOOK stupid?” he asked. But then said, “Unfortunately, no one seems to know how to behave at a workplace.”
So this is part of a larger problem. I use Twitter, e-mail and discussion groups every day – with the dreaded terminaology. Yet, I also send formal letters and press releases out written in proper form. I don’t have a problem with it. And I suspect, if people understand when and where it’s approapriate, neither would anyone else.
Meantime – I see a wonderful oportunity for me to teach proper written language in corporate settings!
All best,
Jacqueline Simonds
Beagle Bay, Inc.
I wholeheartedly agree that Twitter and text-messaging shorthand is getting… well, out of hand. I hired a high school kid to do some data entry for me (names, addresses and phone numbers) into my Outlook file. She didn’t capitalize a single name, city or state.
Not to mention, some of the phone numbers were wrong.
Sometimes fast is too fast. And yes, even on Twitter, if the shortcuts get too short, I un-follow the Twittee.
Great topic, Joan! And thanks for mentioning my recent Twitter Lingo post.
I must say, I agree with the detrimental affect you’re talking about. I typically write all my online messages – be it tweets, Facebook activities, emails, or blog posts/comments – from the standpoint of “WHO might be reading this?” It could be someone for whom English is not their first language. It could be a potential TOP paying client observing me. It could be someone from the media world seeking an interview. We may never know.
But, over-stuffing tweets with too many acronyms could well defeat the purpose of building relationships if people can’t quite understand the message!
Also, from an SEO standpoint, each tweet is a standalone web page and gets indexed by Google. I don’t know that too many searches are being done for “I C U R doing GR8. K, look fwd to tweet U IRL. LMAO!” You get my point, I’m sure. 😉
Thanks again!
Cheers,
Mari
@marismith
Wow, I agree, Joan. Let’s start at the beginning, though. Will kids learn, then remember, how to spell? Language is taking a whipping from text messaging and yes, Twitter, to a degree.
For me, Twitter has become a lesson in editing. If I can’t say most of what I have to say in 140 characters or fewer with no more than two symbols, I don’t post it. (I actually spell out most things in text messages because I can’t stand when I get texts that I can’t understand…writing words out is like my own underlying message.)
I stopped following someone on Twitter because I could never understand what he posted. I love the tool, but secretly plead with users to keep their messages concise and written in real English!
I must read like an old grouchy teacher, but hey, I want to know what the Tweeters I follow, have to say!
Perhaps a few readers will consider the following comments far enough out in left field to cry foul. But, I invite you to pull back a moment to a larger context and see the field for what it represents, which is one part of a unified whole.
The history of language and the written word is a fascinating trip through the evolution of human thought. Well crafted alphabets such as Hebrew, Greek, Arabic and Syrian have deeper functions than simply conveying words. They convey the essence of sacred sound, number, as well as the origin of change and motion. For instance, symbolic communication is seen in certain ritualistic dancing. Some Asian and Polynesian cultures still practice this art, and the stories the dance depicts are passed on to the next generation. However, to foreign eyes the symbols are only pretty movements and the tale is lost due to lack of translation. This type of symbolic communication through movement is rooted in primal language. Prehistoric tales around the campfire were probably not conveyed using long sentences strung together. It’s much more likely that they consisted mainly of gestures augmented by sound and a few words. This is also the basis of modern sign language. Several modern linguistic historians have explored such ritual gestures as a possible origin of what eventually became the Hebrew language. When gestures are made that imitate the letters which constitute some of the basic words of the Hebrew language, the functional meaning of the word becomes quite clear.
Greek letters also represent numbers. Athena was a virgin goddess and her sacred number was seven, which is a prime number indivisible by any other number. The numbers associated with the Greek letters in her name add up to 77 (length). The letters of her epithet, which is Pallas, equal 343, which is seven cubed (an indication of volume). The letters of her appallation, which is parthenos or virgin, equal 515. The degree angle of a heptagon, a seven sided figure, is 51.5 degrees. This indicates area.
Pictorial based written languages such as those found in China and Japan are purely rooted in symbology. They were first developed to convey whole ideas, not single words or letters. The hieroglyphics of the Egyptian language were much the same. The name of the pharaoh was not nearly as important as the fact that the symbol represented the incarnation of the sun god.
The idea of using symbols and abbreviated text in casual writing may strike Western readers as a lack of discipline or education. However, it may be a sign of the changing times toward a melding of global influence. The well formed alphabets mentioned previously are thousands of years older than the characters and structures used in the English language and they are still living languages today. By using symbols and abbreviations in our everyday English, are we being lazy or are we opening ourselves to a cultural shift in our thinking? Here’s something to consider. It’s very difficult for most folks to think without the use of words. Try it. Now, what if you could think in another language, like Chinese. Perhaps instead of words, you might be able to think in whole concepts or in the fluid waves of motion. What if you try thinking in Greek. Perhaps you could imagine spatial dimensions as well.
The lament presented by Joan and several others is the grieving of loss and an inquiry about the future. In the West, our casual language has infiltrated formal writing for centuries. But, adding or deleting words is very different from changing the basic rules by which we communicate. By incorporating more symbolic language, are we simply adapting to current technology and the accelerated pace of life or are we changing the way we perceive and communicate? I suppose the answer to that question depends on your perspective.
Yes, we have become very sloppy communicators over the past decade or two, a condition that has accelerated in the last couple years.
I use Twitter a lot, even though I never liked or use instant messaging. For me, the challenge and fun of Twitter is to construct coherent, intelligent Tweets without silly abbreviations and without expanding a single thought train into multiple tweets.
After all, as a professional freelance writer for the past two decades (and a non-freelancer for two more), I have had to write to length for editors routinely. Sometimes the required length is 3,000 words, sometimes 1,000 or even 500.
With Twitter, the length is 140 characters.
If your Tweet runs too long, simply reword it until it fits. If you have a long thought, just post a link to your blog with a clue as to the subject.
Sloppy communication, after all, is usually too long rather than too brief. But good communication requires using real words without sloppy shorthand.
Unfortunately, this trend to sloppy communication spills over into just about everything far too many people write. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had to ask for clarification just to understand a question in an email.
Or just trashed the unintelligible email without wasting time following up.
Walt, at least three times a week, I respond to an email with “I don’t understand your question. What, exactly, are you asking?”
I was searching for a information about internet marketing and suddenly i reach this site, I read your blog and its really use full i`ll try to use your strategy and let see what will happen…
thanks for a nice review ^_^
The impact of text messaging on the decline of formal writing among teens has been debated in pedagogical circles ever since cell-phone ownership became an adolescent rite of passage in the mid-2000s. But according to a University of Illinois expert in media literacy, not only are critics who argue that texting is synonymous with literary degradation wrong, they also often overlook the bigger role that texting and its distant cousin, “tweeting,” could play in education and research. Carol L. Tilley, a professor of library and information science at Illinois, says that schools and libraries should consider embracing texting and tweeting as a means of engagement rather than simply outlawing it.