OdysseanPromise

Txt speak approved for exams - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

The article is generally about how a committee in New Zealand has come to the conclusion that "text speech", or internet shorthand, will be accepted on papers as long as the student demonstrates the proper understanding?

Thoughts? Comments?

Personally, I find this to be an affront to the English language. I may not always spell everything perfectly, and occasionally a comma of mine might be off, but I try to communicate as clearly as possible. It doesn't take that much more time to type out ALL of your words, and you don't sound like you are twelve years old.

Before this speech was allowed, low level English classes stateside, at least, would already communicate in text speech, despite their teacher's requests. Now, if more things like this pass, we're going to see an entire generation that doesn't know how to communicate intelligeably with their writing.

The sad thing is that I know there are fledgling writers in those groups. I know this because I've read crappy fanfiction:

"So liek Naruto and Sasuke r totaly n skool 'n dey make-out! LOL <3"

What does everyone else think of this decision in schools?

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Miroku4444

Wow this is a low day for New Zealand. All it will do is keep these students that are having trouble writing, unable to write properly. Why care to find how to write it properly when you can shorthand it.

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OdysseanPromise

Well, what do you expect from a continent that started as a penal colony? : P

Just kidding to all of our Australian members. : P

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Spin Da Ish

im not sure exactly but they do their work on the internet and submit it like that? is taht how it goes or just give in random website URLs that they used? confused a bit

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[Hear-It-First]

_gwenibe_

Oi! lol, but good point XD

Well I don't think this is to good and I think that those students who do use it, will most likely end up failing anyway, they said that the NZQA will discourage it and that those who show 'some understanding' will get credit for it, that's not always a pass.

Plus they wouldn't get far in life writing like that, so eventually the day will come when they will just have to write normally. You won't get hired for a job if you can even write properly. Or if they decide to go to uni, how do they think they can pass?

hellknight

I just mostly look at the web site instead of the text book, because if you read the book then you'll take hours to found out one simple question, I just use the website instead of the book.

Silverskater145

I'll make one point. Let us all keep in mind, that language HAS changed and DOES change. I'm sure that Shakespeare would have thought that the English language today is preposterous. Could we actually be actively participating and living in an age where we can witness another change in the English language? It is a cool though. I mean, we all know about Old English and Shakespearean English, now we can actually live the change. And maybe 20 years from now this English we speak now will be archaic and obsolete.

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OdysseanPromise

I thought about that, really, I did, but I just can't see that being the case.

Read a book from the twenties and you will see that we use mostly the same words, but we use them differently, or spell them slightly different. This is true of every couple of generations. Words come into and out of popularity. THAT is evolution in language.

Spelling has been changed over decades or centuries, but words have never been simplified to one letter (edit: with the obvious exception of the word "I", before one of you people jumps on that, but that can be tied to a cultural de-emphasis on the self, and is a result of cultural out growth rather than being too lazy to type three or four letters)

As an English major, and I would like to think one with very little linguistic arrogance to my name, that I would rather die than live in a world inhabited by people who sound like illiterate twelve year olds.

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Abu Dhabi

Actually, Mark Twain was all for shorting the English language. He proposed that language often muddles up basic feelings that everyone has. Also, that people were focusing too much on spelling word usuage than proper expression of feelins.

I do agree with that to some extent, however, i don't really think most people can use that shorthand in the way that committee wants...

in fact, most people are just dumb... and they'll make excuses that "becuz he b bad lol g2g!!!1" somehow explains the actions of Jack the Ripper. i think that type of script is best suited for philosophy... cuz you can say anything and people will think you're brilliant.

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OdysseanPromise

You raise an interesting point. I do agree with Mr.Twain as that language gets in the way of feelings, but in a lot of ways, it is the cultural boundaries that determine how friendly or open a society is, and the language is only part of that.

Take the Romance languages, for example. Most of which are generally the same language, in general word order and rough construction of words, but different languages have different norms for the different cultures. Italians have much different cultural values than the British do. Neither one is intrinsically better, and that is not the avenue of discussion, but English and Italian are two entirely different languages. Italian is a language of beauty, love, and royalty. English is a language of business, taking influence and being bastardized over the years to for it.

I think it is perhaps a bit much to say that words always obscure feelings, as poetry is the means of communicating feelings through words, and that would be impossible without an extensive vocabulary. Look at Orwell's "1984" and its proposed "Newspeak". Poetry and emotion are impossible in such a system where an abstractions such as love would be impossible to convey, and could only be described by such terms as "being double-plus-good" at best.

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Youth-anime-fan

I see that language changes over time, but when one hears the words of those who have gone before us, doesn't it want you to wish we still spoke that way? The words of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and many other people are so amazing. The writing style of John Hancock also symbolizes the wonderful gift of writing that we have received from our ancestors.
So why not try to maintain that air of "superiority" and culture that we are so trying hard to find nowadays? Shouldn't we be trying to maintain some sort of cultural significance and ties to our past? Sure, language changes and styles of writing do too, but when should it be considered "proper language"? If I was a teacher, and some dude handed a paper into me with half of it written in "leet speak" I wouldn't even be able to understand it. Even with the text messaging shorthand, Is it possible for professors to understand every little thing? Is there a dictionary out there with such variances? Even if there was, do professors really have the time to look up all the words just to grade some 18 year old's paper?

I am against such actions against written society. But that is my personal opinion.

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