The State of the English Language Online

Well said. One of the most egregious mistakes, I think, is when your is incorrectly used instead of you’re (for you are). I think it is upon the shoulders of those with “tech cred” to point out, and to correct when possible, when these brutal assaults are committed on the english language.

When I think about how many languages die every year and how people like to play around with words that aren’t even real when they talk, I do get scared for the survival of the English language as I know it. I believe that things like 1337 speak and shortening of text to get your short message in there are things that damage any language. But I don’t believe that this started on the internet.

A prime example of a service that perpetuates this issue is Urban Dictionary. People go on there and just add words whenever they feel like it. These are words that aren’t real English and have no real origin to speak of.

People say things like: “Going to the libary.” According to my spell checker, that’s supposed to be “library”. Or they say “I need to axe you a question”. Please don’t axe me.

And if I twittered this right now, I’d probably leave the G off of every “ing” word that I use. Something like “I’m sittin here commentin on a blog post”. It’s just the way I talk. But I would never use that type of language for an English paper or a public speech.

I commend Chris for getting after people about their grammar. The thing that annoys me the most is people not adding a comma before a conjunction in a series of items. Like “I posted a comment, twittered, and chatted.” They always leave the comma off after the second item. This is wrong no matter where you’re writing it. A comma always comes before the conjunction in a series of three or more items. Whether you’re doing a blog post on the internet or writing an essay for college. There is no other proper way. I don’t care what you heard or where you heard it.

Hello Chris,

I am an 80 year old Australian who grew up during ‘The Great Depression’ of the 1930s, when many people’s first job was as a soldier during World War 2.

Most people of my age group only went as far as year 8 or 9 at school, leaving school at the permitted age of 14 to work in shops, factories, trade apprentices etc.

My secondary schooling was in the 1940s when Word War 2 was raging. I dug air raid trenches during school hours in 1942, was a member of the Royal Australian Air Force Air Training Corps for 2 years and a member of the Royal Asutralian Air Force Volunteet Air Observers Corps for 3 years, while I was still at school.

Never once did I ever hear the word university used in respect of any further education when I was a child. One reason of course was that university education was only open to those whose parents could afford to send them, that is the wealthier class of people.

Surprise, surprise, 16 years after I left school I found myself sitting in the Vice Chancellor’s office of the University of Melbourne (Australia), attending an adminsitrative meeting, in the presence of the Vice Chancellor, Sir George Paton, members of the Professorial staff etc.

Athough my formal education never went beyond year 10, I did pass the English Test for Adult Admission to the University of Melbourne. Most of my working life was spent in drafting and sending business letters to lawyers, actuaries, life insurance companies, accountants etc. When I was in Korea in 1955 an Englsih Army Education Officer paid me a backhnd compliment of speaking ‘reasonably well’ for an Australian.

Although I have not a had a formal university education in English Literature, I am like you appalled at the spelling and sentence construction of so many, including journalists whose sentence construction sometimes leaves you wondering what exactly it is that they are trying to say.

My wife who was an orphan pursued a university education as an adult, completing an honours degree with a major in History and Linguistics.

She later became a university lecturer and among other things taught Business Communication and was Secretary and later President of the Monash University Graduates Association.

She prides herself in the manner in which she spells and constructs her sentences, although she has to admit that we of AngloSaxon heritage and British backgrounds are being contaminated by various forms of American English which is becoming more universal. In some respects the Americans are more likely to base their spelling on the phonetic sounds of words, which I grudgingly accept as more sensible.

I was rather taken by the title of this page ‘The State of the English Language Online’.

As my wife often points out, those like yourself whose native tongue is not English, often surpass the understanding of the English language as used by those born to the tongue, as is often also the case for anyone learning another language other than English.

Yours sincerely

Ken Langdon
http://www.twitter.com/Aussieover80

Noosaville, Queensland, Australia

Many would say English has been in meltdown since Chaucer or more latterly, Shakespeare.

Still others point to the decline of Latin teaching in schools as the trigger for a decline.

So is English in a meltdown or just changing? I don’t know. I suspect it is just changing and the perception of a meltdown is the natural reaction of getting older and seeing change.

As a native English speaker in London, UK I modify my language online. In an international forum such as this I recognise that words will often be taken literally so phrases like “at the end of the day” are open to being interpreted a different way to the idea I meant to convey. In certain other forums I will deliberately use misspellings like “Police Farce” instead of “Police Force”, “Notwork Fail” instead of “Network Rail”, “spill chucker” instead of “spell checker”. But in European or wider forums the literal interpretation does not convey what I wish to communicate.

English will change because of the internet. Some of it will be a decline. But surely those who abuse it gratuitously will ultimately fail to communicate and not be heard.

The internet is still new, it is still finding its place, but I believe that English will find a suitable level where those who want to be heard will be able to communicate and the the common denominator of the English language will still be rich, varied and adaptable. Much like it has over the past seven or so centuries.

I agree. Speaking as a true-blue Brit; I think the English language is getting slaughtered by a younger generation who seem to know nothing but text-speak. When they try their hand at writing down “proper” English, it’s laughable. No punctuation, non-existent grammar, no vowels – the list is endless and it’s not getting any better as time goes on.
To use an old phrase: “What do they teach them at school these days?”

Well with that in mind some people have lerning dificoulties like me and it is not the fault of the person that is typeing.ect i think that there is some valid points in this blog but i dont feel this is the right way of dealing with it and now it is more and more ecseptable to abrev LOL and shorten words on the internet.

In regards to what Chris Wiggins said, I would like to add another egregious misuse of “there” for their and they’re.

As for the article, it’s very well written and I am also dismayed to see how many people use the language erroneously – no offense, most of the mistakes I’ve seen are made by native speakers. I find myself often correcting them, when it should be the other way around.

As one of the many elder statesmen of our nation, i cringe often at the butchering of our language. Have taken the Toastmaster course and finished very well polished, i am very annoyed at the likes of Mr. Gibbs ,our megaphone for the President’s Office ,with his poor delivery especally with the multitudes of “ahs”. I shall finish with another of my favorite errors and that is the finishing of sentences with prepositions. Ok that is what I”m About” (humor intended)

I couldn’t agree more!

However, I think this is a problem that affects many other languages as well. Here in Portugal but especially in Brazil things are exactly the same. People have to be either idiots or lazy when they CONSCIOUSLY replace q’s for k’s (very common in Portuguese SMS text talk), abbreviate the impossible, forget punctuation, etc. It just blows my mind.

But do you know what’s worse? If I dare to call my friends on it, telling them they have made (several) mistakes in their writing, they fire away at me, calling me a “teacher” or saying I’m being “Holier than Thou”.

Do you have a simple way I can avoid this situation, WITHOUT “not saying anything” about their poor language skills? I mean come on, I’m not talking about missing one letter in an entire text, I mean CONSTANLTY writing poorly! If I made a mistake, I would APPRECIATE it if a friend pointed it out. Why do others hate being corrected so much? Is it the way I do it? Is it because it’s ME?

A strategy that seems to work is correcting people by giving two alternatives: For instance if they were to misspell “Receive”, I might ask “Is it ‘recieve’ or ‘receive’?” This way I am not “being a show off”, I am sharing an honest feeling of “doubt” and opening the door of curiosity to allow the subject to make amends.

This strategy has had two kinds of results:
1. The person realizes the mistake(s) and makes the proper correction. (WIN)
2. The person says “Oh who cares about that?!” and in this case, chooses to be WRONG. (FAIL)

I believe this way is the best way to continue being a geek and maintain my sanity at the same time. I can only try to teach the person how to fish… If he or she wants to learn or not that’s not my responsibility.

In Chaucer’s day spelling hadn’t been formalised in English – indeed, he was one of the first writers to use the language, which was a mongrel mix of French, Latin & Anglo-Saxon. One has to wonder what native Anglo-Saxon speakers would have thought of this weird creole or argot that had emerged out of the culture clash of Norman & Saxon? The internet brings people from all sorts of cultures into contact, and when that happens, change happens in language.

Also, with things like 1337-speak, these are codes to denote in-group boundaries. If you know & understand these codes, you’re part of the in-group, if not, you’re not. It’s a shibboleth, if you will.