The Joys of Cooking Your Family and Pets
cauldron crone for talisman by feliciacano at Deviant Art
Yep. You read that title right.
Or did you?
Are you sure?
How do you know?
Let's try another one:
Let's eat Grandma!
Or, how about:
No, thanks. I already ate man.
In our ever-evolving (or devolving) world of technology, we see more and more examples of how language and communication continue to change and "develop" rapidly over time. New words crop up (I use "word" loosely here). Trendy words die out (thank God). Terms that should have gone extinct decades ago due to their inflammatory nature seem to crop back up like a bad case of athlete's foot when a new batch of ingrates "rediscovers" them (thanks so much, UrbanDictionary.com). We see arguments for and against certain grammar rules igniting across the internet. (I will stand on that pro-Oxford comma hill and die on it if I have to! Suck it, Lynn!) But even more disturbing, to me at least, is the evident slow death of grammar comprehension and usage in our day-to-day correspondence.
Video may not have managed to kill the radio star, but e-speak is murdering the f**k out of the English language.
Why?
Back in the days of chatrooms and T9 texting (holy shit I feel old now), text speak was a common occurrence. It saved time and potentially valuable text dollars back when we didn't have unlimited texting as a standard carrier service (see: back in the Dark Ages). Chat rooms required quick fingers and the ability to get your message across fast and efficiently or running the risk of falling behind in the conversation that continued to scroll down the screen without you. Because of these things, abbreviations became the norm and developed into a sort of pseudo-language all of its own (i.e.-LOL, TTYL, BRB, AFK, G2G, OMW, OMG).
And now, like the mythical hydra of lore, the damn thing just won't die.
Most of the people using the lingo today don't even know where it originated from. They just keep using it because that's what people do now. Modern MMOs and computer games still apply these chat methods with pretty much the same shorthand, but it is often tailored to the individual game communities. Every Tom, Dick, and Sherri with a cellphone now uses this base lingo too. Odds are, the younger ones don't even know that these "words" are actually older abbreviations. They've just adopted them as actual words with their own pre-existing definitions.
Another factor adding to the current problem started back when Microsoft Word and its peers introduced spellcheck and grammar check features to their software around the late 90s. These components have slowly become more advanced and filtered into most (but not all) text-based applications including many e-mail services and (theoretically) even this very Blog platform. What most people neglect to pay attention to, though, (and every English teacher in the past twenty years has considered quitting their job on the spot over) is the fact that, unless you have some degree of spelling and grammar comprehension of your own, those features don't really do jack for you. Grammar check requires you to get at least somewhere in the right ballpark for it to understand what you're trying to write. Even then, it's not always accurate. Spellcheckers may catch your big screwups, but if you happen to spell the wrong word correctly, more often than not, it's not going to notice. What this means is, we currently have an entire generation (or three now?) that don't bother to fully learn or apply proper spelling and grammar usage because they assume the composition programs they use will correct their errors or autofill the correct words for them. (I see you English teachers of the world, and I weep with you in sympathy.) The assumption is, "Why bother learning it correctly myself if the computer is just going to do it for me?"
Yeah. Pretty much.
Potentially the biggest factor that is currently influencing the decline of our written language, ironically enough, is the extensive use of text based social media. Lazy and rushed typing is the norm. It's generally assumed that nobody is really paying attention to grammar and spelling because, "Hey, it's just social media, right?" But the problem is, we learn what we practice. Ask any sportsball coach, and they'll agree. The things we do (or don't do) repeatedly become habits. The skills we apply or let atrophy are the ones that we carry forward with us or lose. When we sluff off our written language skills on a daily basis or read and absorb bad spelling and grammar from other people, we effectively relearn those existing skills incorrectly and allow those errors to become habitual. If you have a person who is already lacking in those skills, it only gets worse because of the reinforcement that they receive online from friends and family. What's more, those people continue to influence even furher decline in others by demonstrating their own bad habits and reinforcing them!
Now the big question some people might ask (though probably not anybody who reads this Blog) is, "What's the big deal?"
The simple answer is, it's not a big deal. Language evolves, it adapts, it changes. Language is a living thing. When a language stops developing it's usually because it died (i.e. - Latin) or it became something completely different (i.e. - every language that came out of Latin). What's more, the people who speak these languages are the ones who are actively (or more often subconsciously) changing them. Unless it creates a problem, most people barely notice the changes because they're part of that process and evolution.
The more complicated answer is, it's actually kind of a really big deal.
Back in Ye Olden Tymes, written language was kind of a huge mess. Spelling wasn't exactly standardized. Grammar rules weren't much in existence. It wasn't a huge issue because most people couldn't read or write anyway, but for the people who could, translating one person's version of written language to another's often created communication errors. If you've ever read an unabridged selection from Shakespeare or Chaucer today, you kind of start to get an idea of what that might have looked like.
Don't get me wrong, even now we have a surprising number of style guides for the English language alone. Grade schools teach one way for the basic fundamentals, though perhaps not uniformly nationwide. High schools and colleges typically push APA style for academic purposes. Non-academic and non-journalistic writing such as with novels is typically done using the Chicago Manual of Style. While most of the grammar and spelling rules are consistent between the various style manuals, some of them are noticeably different. What is important is that as long as a writer adheres to some form of guideline, the message and intent of their writing should remain clear. Without these structures in place, miscommunications become more common and the very purpose of written language starts to fall apart.
Example: Ashton is a hawty. OMG his drgn daddy is supes kewl. u no he BA AF. Why is A not his bae tho?
Oh... oh, lord, that hurt. I think my eyes are bleeding now. I may need to lie down soon. I'm feeling faint.
The point is, without some form of spelling and grammar consistency, written language stops making sense. Communication breaks down. Bad things start to happen. Also, as evidenced by the Blog title and the examples that followed, proper grammar is kind of important to avoid sounding like a cannibalistic psychopath. If that isn't a good enough motivation to practice proper grammar, I'm not sure what is.
Have a great weekend folks! I'm going to go bleach my brain now.
