Afternoon De’Lite
So, here I go again, bitching about modern society, just hold on your hats.
While walking through the supermarket the other afternoon, I found myself stuck in the refrigerated aisle face to face with more packets displaying butchered grammar and spelling than there are emos at a Green Day concert. There were more “Lite’s” and “Nites” than anyone needs to see in a lifetime. If I wanted to see bad grammar, I’d hang out on IRC chat forums, or talk to angst-ridden 12 year-olds on MSN/Myspace. What ever happened to brands with integrity and morals that wished to continue the tradition of some vestige of english grammar and spelling?
An article I read in the Herald Sun on Friday was entitled “OK, RU Purists Relieved?”, and it stated that a Canadian study had found that “abbreviations, linguistic shortcuts and phonetic spelling popular among SMS users pose no threat to the integrity of the English language”. Fantastic! So instead of being able to blame The Youth of Today for the decline of the English language, we have to suck it up and blame ourselves for buying lite donuts from drive-thru’s every nite. How can we let companies and advertisers help us destroy our lingusitic standards?
I suppose there are arguments to the effect that this is just another in the long line of evolutionary steps that English has taken since ye olde days. But I view it as something more severe, for with a decline in language comes a reduction in the possibility of self-expression, and with that comes a limitation on thought in general. And that just ain’t cool.
August 6th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
Just don’t communicate with anybody. At all.
Solves most problems.
~SST
PS. Limo is an abbreviation.
August 6th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Saw a newspaper article recently on the need to up the English score needed to get into teaching in Aus… somewhat related I feel…
August 7th, 2006 at 12:31 am
While many of you may not actually believe it I do frequent many opinion articles mainly in the age and the Australian, because let’s face it, the herald sun is nothing more than a TV guide with a slap of sport for the Collingwood supporters out there who have actually finished school but still need to know when their daily dose of jerry Springer is on. Cue ye olde school mullets and dole cheques please.
)
One opinion I have of the whole situation is while the new sms/txt generation blame their phones for their somewhat diminished abilities at the helm of a pen and paper, I think that those older members of society (people stretching from our age to our parents) are squarely to blame.
Turn on the TV, walk into any English class, read any soap op mag and you’ll find these people attempting to reach out to a demographic in a way it belittles and undercuts young peoples developmental understandings of basic English construction. I mean I learnt not only nouns and adverbs, but also those other more important things like interjections and basic grammar… as will mentioned… and no, not Nelly’s “Country Gramma” the real deal.
I am currently working as a tutor at my old school, and no, unlike many tutors, I do not just cater for the kids that want a 95% instead of the 92% GPA they currently have, I’m talking about those kids who don’t have an understanding of those basic conceptual links between what you say and what you write being two extremely different things. Convey meaning? Maybe, but make a point intelligently? No, most of the txt generation cannot. And it boils down to the simple fact that for marketing sake in this crazy consumerist world we now resort to laziness and blatant vociferous noise to reach younger people that they now know nothing of intelligence through English.
How extremely sad it is to think that Shakespeare is now an art because we have to dumb it down to a level that can be cleaned up and abbreviated so it can be txt-ed to fair Juliet sitting on that balcony in moonlight… or rent it on video in a new hip version with a theme song by star Hillary Duff. (We know she’s a fav of yours Will
Call me hackneyed, obtuse or an old fashioned romantic, but it is a very cold world when we refuse to provoke meaning to our thoughts and words and even worse to provide none what so ever. And that’s why I agree that words like “thru,” “nite,” and “lite” are simply nothing more than far to trite in thus rampaging society of despicable kids with mobiles, running around in black lippy, listening to some whiny 20 something year old because he sings of his failure to commit suicide. You want to know why you failed? Maybe because you don’t mean a damn thing you say and can’t describe your emotion in a thought provoking manner, or maybe we failed you…
August 7th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
u splt it wrg- shud b “afta”
August 7th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
nah, u shld 5p33k in l33t, 1ts c00lr and Pwn3d by |-|4xx0|2z,
n00bs 5uxx0r
August 7th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
You mean 1337. Not 133t.
h4X0r
August 8th, 2006 at 10:43 am
Get
August 8th, 2006 at 10:44 am
a
August 8th, 2006 at 10:44 am
life
August 8th, 2006 at 10:44 am
you CS die hards
August 8th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
I believe we were taking the mickey there Dave, its the people that use 1337 and take themselves seriously that are the true culprits here. Language-assassins that they are.
August 8th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Seeing as we’re being picky.
AssasSins.
August 9th, 2006 at 1:10 am
can anyone say pedantic without stupid abreviabtions?? or do you all just defy the point of the rant for the hell of being as stupid as those “health food” junkies take you for… like anything you find frozen is actually lite….
August 9th, 2006 at 11:36 am
pagey ranks pagey rank, another link to make better my google pagey rank don’t click here.
August 9th, 2006 at 11:56 am
silly macguyver, if you’re going to whore yourself out like that in such an undignified manner, at least have the decency to write your html tags properly, so I don’t have to come by and sort them out for you! Dear oh dear…
August 9th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
can anyone say desperate for attention?
August 9th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
me me me me
i can!!!