WebSpeak: The death of language?

[Lightbulb]

We should flame someone who doesn't speak good English for trying to enter a debate? If thats what you think then thats it - i just disagree.

However i accept that someone coming along saying:

"Halo 3 iz teh shit!!!!11one!pi!" should be discouraged...

 

[sergeantz]

Actually, I think someone was banned fairly recently for doing the former.

 

[Saskwach]

And the belief that form is somehow separate to content is false. As Arnold Bennet roughly said in a book I'll dig out soon to properly quote if you say something like "His form was bad but I understood what he was saying," you are saying that the words he chose were enough to get across his meaning, if only in a hazy way. In other words his form conveyed his content. With truly bad form it would be impossible to understand what someone is saying. If you misunderstood him then his English was obviously bad.

1) But it is, or at least should be. A Spanish person who doesn't speak very good English could be saying the most profound thing ever posted in a forum, and yet people would vilify him for his bad grammar. This isn't right. I guess the phrase that sums it up if we are going to fling quotes around: "Don't judge a book by its cover."

2) How can I know if I misunderstood someone?

3) Now you have me wondering if your starting a paragraph with "And" was a deliberate flaunting of convention or just an accident...

You know what they say about language rules. Good writers follow them. Great writers break them. I've never had any truck with the "no And" rule. It seems to be one of those "just because" ones.
Oh and sorry to disagree with you here. I mainly agree with you but I like satanic advocacy. Also, just to continue, how is it profound if it's broken English? If he said it in Spanish then it's profound because it's expressive and accurate to his thoughts (which are themselves in Spanish so would be most profound in the Spanish language with all its own quirky hangups and mutual conceptions).

 

[Money2themax]

He/She makes A good Point & His/Her thought is relevant the internet is just really for opinions to be stated and he wasn't flaming anyone he just wanted to speak his/her mind and i applaud him/her for that. Good job at least someone speaks there mind here about something relevant. Good job Freak.

 

[Bongo Bill]

A great writer breaks the rules but invents his own, whereas a bad writer just ignores them.

 

[Money2themax]

too Tru too tru. smart ppl are everywhere aren't they?

 

[Copter400]

I don't think the English language is going to be completely wiped out by Internet chatrooms. When you hear people say 'lol' and 'noob' in public (something that is common place for me), you do tend to worry a bit, but until someone manages to publish a book with constant, abject spelling errors and seeing as though the people who make those sorts of errors don't get published, I don't think Ye Olde English is going any time soon.

 

[traceur_]

Not the death of language but rather a lazy butchering of it, it's sheer laziness that has given birth to atrocities like "stfu" and "omg", the only way to fight it is to spread the escapist's grammatical awesome.

 

[Ignignoct]

Swine flu, is it a sign of the Apocalypse?

...

Don't be ridiculous.

Just enjoy the fact that speaking proper English will be a less common skill to differentiate you from the swarm.

 

[FallenRainbows]

Let us linguists fight back! Let there be intelligence. Let us eradicate ignorance! To WAR!!

Webspeak is the new illiteracy.

You speak of failure, this is not an option. I will use my grammatical talents to stop such a thing even if I'm the last one left.

(The great linguistic skills of the escapists is why the Escapist is that last bastion of hope in the internet.)

 

[Matronadena]

as much as I can't stand it, there is ONE interesting thing to come out of it.

Kids who use net/txt/l33t have on average have an easier time learning new languages as they keep their neurological pathways dedicated to developing language skills in use, and thus active longer.

This pathway starts to break down during puberty, and is, for lack of a better term, "an over grown, neglected trail " by adulthood.

 

[Jharry5]

Webspeak, even though I hate to admit it because it does irritate me, is not the death of language but more of an evolution.
It's happened throughout the history of English; during Shakespeare's time, the language was constantly shifting. Shakespeare was known to spell his own name in about nine different ways. No clean cut rules to spelling and punctuation were laid down until years later.
I think text speak is just another link in evolutionary chain. Throughout human existence, all we have created has been done so to make things easier. As much as it pains me, I have to admit that its easier to type 'brb' instead of 'be right back', or 'rofl' instead of 'roll on floor laughing'...

 

[Arrers]

I seriously doubt that Webspeak is harming the english language. As far as I can see, it's just a new (if dumb-sounding) kind of slang. I just wish it sounded cooler, like that Nasdat-talk.

 

[Irridium]

wow, I thought that I was the only one who spelled out my words instead of abbreviating(probably spelled that wrong) them.


And to me, if you send me a message or post and have a shit load of spelling and grammar mistakes, then you are automatically classified as a dumbass and are ignored.

 

[Learchuz]

God, I hate acronyms, they are nothing more than a headache to me.

Some, like KOTOR and WOW, are no longer acronyms so much as they are actual words now, they're used so often.

Seriously, my friends, the real life ones, spoke KOTOR aloud, like it was the actual word.

Infuriting, really.

Even worse acronyms are the ones that can be confused with games of similar names, like GOW or CC.

Acronyms for titles isn't the problem for me really. It's when people say, SAY, in public while carrying on a conversation, things like LOL, ROFL, J/K, etc... God awful.

 

[The_Pen_is_Mightier]

We've got to allow language to develop. If we took our modern lexicon back to the eleventh century, we wouldn't be understood. Spellings and words must develop, and they will, so why make a big deal out of something that is human nature?

 

[ThePoodonkis]

People don't cell-phone text message me anymore for this reason. I got incredibly peeved when my family decided vowels and the word "you" weren't necessary anymore. So, I did the most logical thing: resend their message, correctly written, then reply.
Now they just call me instead of that texting thing. I don't mind that one bit.

As for online, I don't come across it anymore. This is the only forum I go to.

 

[Altorin]

webspeak is proof that the language is still alive, not that it's dying.

It may not be pretty, but I'm sure Victorians thought the language of the street was pretty ugly too. They probably had a lot of similar complaints about the degradation of language. But the fact of the matter is, languages such as english evolve and change over time.. Will webspeak be the next "street language"? probably not, but it's something to think about.

Full Disclosure, I dislike it as much as anyone, I just see it as it is.