What ever happened to the English language?

Question

So I just wanted a serious and intelligent answer to what happened to spelling things properly. The words "dat" and "der" and all that crazy stuff drives me crazy. I can't read half of the questions because I can't understand what these people are trying to say. Forget proper grammer, or hell, grammer period, I could probably get passed that. But can someone please tell me why we have given up on the actualy English language and just gone for "write it how it sounds"?? It's highly irritating and makes people look ignorant!! Who is going to hire someone who can't type "that" or "there" because they think "dat" and "der" is better!?!?

by the way this isn't supposed to be in the "preschool" section...I must have hit the wrong subcatagory.

As for the person cracking on my typing, they seemed to have removed the spell check and I type a lot faster than I should. Common mistyping is one thing, intentional screw ups is another.

Answer 1

Well, part of it is posturing. Evidently it's cool these days to show that you're a moron by using texting abbreviations.

The other part is laziness and some odd form of pride to never take the .005 seconds it requires to use the spell checker. FYI "grammar" and "actually" but the rest of your message is great.

I keep trying to stress to people that anything that gets in the way of your message is a barrier to good communication. This includes bad spelling, bad grammar, made-up words, and a lack of punctuation and spacing. I guess some folks (not you) don't care about how much work they put their readers through!

To answer your other question, of course I observe someone's written and oral English skills when making the decision whether or not to hire them. It would be very lax for me to hire someone who is going to embarrass me with such errors in a presentation.

Keep up the good fight!

Answer 2

Oh my goodness, yes! I hate all the internet lingo, not only because it leaks into the real world of reports and essays, but it is also turning our younger generation into illiterate idiots. Spelling bees would soon become extinct and the school systems would just have to take up Creative Spelling classes to perfect the "dat" and "der" spellings just so the rest of the country can understand one another, but we will lose contact with all other countries. We don't even know our mother language!

Answer 3

well, since this is just "Internet language", people do whatever they feel like. If it came to school work, and people were actually writing like that, then there would be a problem. until then, I'm sure it's fine-but yes- annoying. nothing can be done about it, other than a firm education in the English language in school, so children( who become adult users) know what is expected of them when attempting to communicate logically/ intelligently. For now, just bash the people who use the "e-slang" or whatever in their questions that is so outrageously bad, no one can understand.

Answer 4

well, I believe that there are many contributing factors to the degredation of the english language in the US. first and foremost I believe is that the idea that all immigrants to our country must assimilate to our culture has been thrown out the window. I also believe that the movie industry to some extent and especially the music industry have glorified the idea of being simple minded. I would lay a great deal of this degredation at the feet of the rap industry, I feel that they do the most to glorify slang terms. I will also put some of the blame to the internet, people just started shortening things to type them more quickly, and it became common practice.

Answer 5

I understand how you feel, it looks ignorant, but I disagree in some respects.
I speak English, French, Spanish, and Japanese.
My first language was not English, it's Black English.

And so I was bilingual, so to speak, at an early age.
And I am able to appreciate other languages now, because
I know there is another way to DO things, I don't knock how other people choose to express themselves

I know personally how it feels for someone to say that how you talk is weird or non-standard, when all you know is, that's the way you talk. Non-standardized forms of languages tend to simplify by making more things sound alike, written and spoken. Or easier to pronounce, period. French and Spanish do it. Japanese does it.

English does it too.

And so does Black English. Of course our grammatical rules don't necessarily just derive from English, they have roots in ancient West African languages. (the West Coast especially)Hmm...

There's just more than one way to do things, folks

Answer 6

I defiantly agree.Kids and some adults are not as educated and don't see the point because it looks cool and sounds cool, when they need to understand that the language of slang only works for a few years then you have to grow up and understand how adults are supposed to speak.

Answer 7

Poor writing also drives me crazy. I really worry about our youth; they seem highly inarticulate. My children learned the differences in "too, to, two" and "they're, their, there" in fourth grade. What happened to the people on here? Did they not learn it? Forget it? Or is it laziness? I honestly don't know which case would be worse.

Answer 8

I agree with you. The phonetic spelling you see these days drives me nuts, along with the text messaging shorthand. We are in real danger of losing our language and writing skills if this continues!

Answer 9

english is not so much a language in its own right as it is an amalgamation of many borrowed languages combined to form the most important form of global communication available today .it has become the most widespread method of art and technique to impart information and ideas: therefore intonation and phonetics have become much more important for a good reason.

Answer 10

Sadly, the English language has been bastardized for simplicity's sake.