Iz corect speling + grmmer soon 2B a thing ov tha past?

Answer 1

It appears so! It's like the tower of babel around here!!!

Answer 2

Just a few hundred years ago, spelling was much more free-form. The internet is just bringing that back, though certain rules of grammar and spelling seem to hold sway even there. I could see an internet/sms-only dialect developing more fully over the next few decades.


Gutz: While meaning can be enhanced by good grammar, it can also be obscured when one clings to the "proper" rules too tightly. I, for one, am excited to see what sort of language develops on the internet in the future. If, as you seem to believe, current internet language does not work well, people will stop using it. On the other hand, if it works well enough, people will continue to use and refine it, and it will develop solid rules of its own.

Continued:

You ask for an example of an ungrammatical sentence that is more clear than one using good grammar, and I admit that is a difficult challenge to answer. As long as everybody uses and fully understands the same rules of grammar, people who speak and write according to those rules will be easily understood. When those rules begin to change, however, as rules of grammar always do, "proper" grammar becomes less useful.

I think the average teenager or twenty-something would understand the phrase "LOL" more quickly than, "I have just expressed my amusement audibly." The phrase, "where you at?" is at least as clear (to most people) as "what is your current location?" It all depends on who is talking, and who is listening.

Answer 3

Yes, and this Yahoo Answers website is contributing to the regrettable demise of grammar and orthography.

I have responded to your deliberately illiterate inquiry, because I am able to divine the meaning, but the rules of grammar and spelling are there to ensure that readers are not unduly tasked with decoding eccentric personal shorthands. Furthermore, good grammar leads to better thinking. If a person is obliged to organize his thoughts rigorously before actually committing them to speech or writing many mistakes in logic and fact that would otherwise occur in haste would have a better chance of correction by the author before the embarrassment of being corrected by ones critics.

I advocate a boycott of any replies to questions posted on Yahoo Answers not composed with the highest attention to clear, concise grammar and strict orthography. Since Yahoo is a fundamentally American enterprise, I further stipulate that the rules of English spelling should follow the American rather than the British standard.

Kristian:

I beg to differ. I invite you to cite an example of an ungrammatical sentence that is less ambiguous than its well-composed equivalent.

You note that in the past, especially before the Enlightenment, spelling was more free-form than today. I agree. It is also true that literacy was a thing rarely achieved and then only at great expense. The standardization of English that occurred in the late 18th century created conditions which nurtured universal education. I should reckon that a return to "free-form" spelling and haphazard grammar will only reduce the effectiveness of our already floundering educational establishment.

Answer 4

Once upon a time, the written and spoken word were the main mediums of communication. People used to read books. They used to converse. They were judged by how well they spoke and wrote.

Then came television. The image became the main medium of communication. And the unbelievably inept communication that you're pointing to is the result.

If people fifty years ago could have looked into a crystal ball and seen how people today write--seen, for example, the quality of expression on Yahoo Anwers--they would have freaked. Totally.

Answer 5

It only goes as far as we (being people) allow it. There is a time and place to do all things. Slang has no exception. If we teach each other and the next generations the correct way, when they learn the slang and all of that, then it won't be so hard to understand the difference between the two. It's just like learning a foreign language. As long as you have been taught your native language and your foundation has been planted, then, what you learn after that is a plus. Just have to hold on to how sacred you allow your traditional ways to be.

Answer 6

i git a kollej ejucashen end i mayjord in inglis.

Answer 7

ya

Answer 8

Not if you keep doing that, lol

Answer 9

I hope not...