To whom it may Concern,
I am very concerned about the article I just read in your magazine. My name is May Everymom I am a mother of three living in Ohio. I have heard that technology and texting have been ruining English. The kids, instead of learning the proper way of doing things, use nonsensical shortenings and lack of grammar and punctuation. The article ur a gd mn mr gum ;-) in The Zurich Magazine states that technology and texting is a good thing of English when it is clearly not. My sons English scores tell it all. He is now entering the 10th grade and his grades in English, particularly grammar, have been very low. His teacher has told me that these weird sort of abbreviation found in texting have been in his essays. So I confiscated his phone until he improves them and it has worked very well. I have a few ideas about what you could change to resolve this blatant lack of knowledge. You should go out and actually talk to a teacher, for example. Get the opinion right from the people who have the most knowledge on the subject. Or talk to the kids. I read somewhere that kids admit that this so called 'text speak' makes it into essays and exams all the time. For that matter where does this David crystal come off acting as though he can see into the minds of our kids? He acts like this horrid lack of capability to function as the logical progression of the English language. Which makes no sense because 'text speak' constitutes a complete disregard for the rules. Another way to address this issue of misinformation is to consult another so called 'expert'. It is important to get more than one view for these things. Another point of view is lacking in your magazine. This leads to incorrect assumptions about the topic. People would see this and say "I guess it is the truth since no one argued", which is no the case. The lack of representation in your magazine is something that needs to be address. What happened to the days when you could trust what you read to give you all the information? It is important to get a good education, without one you will not make it anywhere in life. Education is all about learning the facts and rules of the past. I want a good education for my kids, the kind i never got. I hope you will take my thoughts into consideration.
Sincerely,
May Everymom
To whom it may concern,
My name is Mr. Prof, Eng Lish Prof. I am a high school language and literature teacher. While looking for some material to use for class i came across the article ur a gd mn mr gum ;-) in The Zurich Magazine. I thought it would be beneficial to you and to the general population if I informed you of some small things you overlooked. Firstly, Mr. Crystals theory is not flawless. He admits this himself. And those little abbreviations get in more often then David may believe. Last week on an exam I saw at least ten different kids use 'gonna'. 'Gonna' is not a word; however it is one of those 'text speak' abbreviations. Additionally I did some asking and the kids said that many of the abbreviations he mentioned are unused. Some of them the kids did not even understand. Those seemed to be so specific that they were put out of use long ago. This does suggest that Mr. Crystal is grasping for possible examples to prove his theories and find validity in them. That is another thing. The good professor is not exposed to the kids all the time. He finds research done rapidly. They call the kid out, ask them a few questions, and then move on. The kids are likely to lie how often things like 'gonna' happen. This occurs, not to intentionally falsify scientific experiments, but to save face. The kids do not know of the man asking them about how often they make grammar errors is not from the board of education. Also Mr. Crystals sources remain rather vague. This is not to imply that he is falsifying information, but to suggest that he should make them more public if he wishes to publish or be in interviews. Additionally such research should be conducted by the man himself in order to minimize possible errors. He should not be published or interviewed in anyway until these sorts of things have been established, nor should anyone for that matter. That is only some advice to assist the public in finding the most accurate knowledge available. Additionally it may be beneficial if you talked to people of a differing opinion. Or just people who are directly effected by the circumstance and feel strongly about it. I hope you will consider such revision and such matters in the future.
Sincerely,
Eng Lish Prof.
I reread this recently and a found that there are a few missing words and some words that are improperly used. If you see one please point it out so i can make the necessary changes. Thank you
ReplyDeleteA very interesting subject to cover, however there were a few grammatical errors scattered throughout the text as you mentioned. For one the line 'The kids, instead of learning the proper way of doing things, use nonsensical shortenings...' could be better phrased as 'Children nowadays have begun incorporating a larger number of nonsensical abbreviations in their writings, failing to adhere to the very conventions and rules that the english language was founded on,' for example. Furthermore it would be very helpful if you were to somehow highlight your primary source from the rest of your text, inserting abbreviations around it or making bold, causing it to be more easily discernible. Another slight mistake includes 'good thing of English,' where the 'of' should be 'for.' There are a few other similar errors in you next letter but you should be able to easily spot them out after completing a thorough read through of it. Finally you might want to recognize that the word 'gonna' was long characterized as an AAVE term far before text speak absorbed it.
ReplyDeleteHere are a few helpful suggestions
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say "And I think I did so rather well." at the end of your rational. I would take of marks for that as an examiner and it would reflect poorly on your judgement (it is not appropriate for a written task). Also I wouldn't have the name as May Everymom. I know you might want to seem witty with the wording, but I found it distasteful. And in your rational you stated that the woman was poorly educated. I can't imagine that a poorly educated person would use the complex vocabulary and conventions in her letter. Either 1) change the letter to make the language more simple, or 2) change the rational wording of "poorly educated" to poorly informed." And I would use quotation marks on the title of works. It took me a minute to understand what "The article ur a gd mn mr gum ;-) " meant.