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Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Stop English Abuse


Dear Reader, Please indulge me as I must take a few moments to rant.  I have had it up to here (and since this is the internet, I will tell you I’m 5’5” and up to “here” is about that high) with the abuse of the English language.  I have absolutely had it!
I am so sick and tired of seeing Facebook posts that require a secret decoder to be able to read.  Example:  gettin offline now, goin to bed, busy day tom wit tha ….  Do you not know how to type the last letter of a word? Does it really take that much more effort to type a “G”, a “G”, a “H”, and a “T”?  Are you so busy you need to skip those four letters?  Or are you just that lazy?
Now, before everyone gets their knickers in a twist I just want to clarify a couple of things.  One – I get that Twitter is 140 characters or less, ergo (and yes, I just used ergo, don’t make me break out vis a vis) it is sometimes required to be clever and type shortcuts to get your point across.  Two – In the world of texting I also understand it is quicker to use short cuts.
I am not complaining about either of these formats.  I am complaining about Facebook, a format where you have more characters and a keyboard (and if you are posting from your phone, it’s a smart phone and has a keyboard).
I would also like to point out the fact that this blatant butchery of the English language is not restricted to Facebook.  This epidemic has spread into academia.  My husband is a high school science teacher.  To protect the morons he teaches, we shall call his high school Ghetto High.   He teaches seniors at Ghetto High.  These young minds are about to enter the real world and I shudder at the though, be legally given the right to vote.  I see the papers he grades.  The “English” these kids use is horrid, atrocious, and cringe-worthy.  It’s the grading equivalent of mixing “Horders: Buried Alive” with the train wreck that is “Wife Swap”.  If my husband graded on spelling or grammar, no one would pass.   I feel bad for him.  He deals with these jackwagons (thank you R. Lee Ermey) day in and day out.  Every time I get a glance at these grading gems, my IQ drops 10 points.  No wonder some of his coworkers have to take Xanax to get through the day.  But I digress…
This abuse of the English language must stop.  Please join with me and pledge to write complete and comprehensible sentences.  Sentences that use ALL the letters that were intended to be there (This, children, is called SPELLING).  Sentences that have nouns, verbs and, if needed, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs.  Sentences that make you sound like an educated human being, not a hairy ape that escaped from the zoo.
Whew.  Thank you for letting me vent.
C U L8R (Tee-Hee) - Melissa
You know what makes me sad?  You do ya Jackwagon!
 

2 comments:

  1. Loved the line about vis-a-vis!

    I'll happily take this pledge. I've never used, or been able to understand, Internet Speak.

    Also, I feel for your husband. I graded student essays for a testing company for a few months, and holy cow, there was some cringe-worthy stuff! Including one essay that had me laughing and crying all at once. I almost had to leave the room before I disrupted everyone.

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  2. Hehehe - Saturday Sequins. Welcome to my Random Mind. Glad you picked up on the vis-a-vis! All I could see (and hence cracked myself up) was Will Ferrell doing the spoof

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra5-H9ZBS1U

    I keep telling my husband he needs to write a book about his "education" stories. Some of the ones he comes home with are quite shocking.

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