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A Letter To the Editor

A response to the editor of “Twtr? It’s majorly bad!”:

I am writing this to express my concern, I am sorry to say I disagree with the arguments made in your article. 

Throughout the text you claim that a “generation of children are leaving school without a proper grasp of spelling and grammar because of the impact of so-called textspeak” as well as ‘“the correct use of spelling and grammar is important but there is going to be a whole generation which is not necessarily able to do that”. Your article simply claims that children are unable to spell correctly because of new technologies, this however is not a valid argument. Yes, there is an increase in the use of colloquialisms and abbreviations but this is not a sign that the youth of today’s society is falling down a dark path. The English language has always evolved and will continue to evolve, not accepting that fact will only make it more difficult for everyone. Blaming ‘text speak’ is not a valid argument for the fact that you are not able to understand that language continues to change and evolve. 

I urge you to understand that technology will not disappear, in fact it will only continue to develop. As does language, and language was made to adapt to the environment placed in. The world is not the same as it was 20 years ago so forcing language to stay the same is only ineffective. The world needs to develop new words in order to keep up with new ideas and advances. Young people are finding that using text speak is now more normal than not. Even though you may disagree, you must understand that each generation continues to come up with new ideas and rather than them being scoffed upon, they should be welcomed. This new generation is the future wether you like it or not. 
I do agree with the argument that text speak should be used in appropriate circumstances, and this should be taught in school. This however is just a matter of teaching children how to change their idiolect around different situations. Rather than trying to turn back time, the lesson plans should be adapted to fit the world of today’s youngsters. 

I just want to bring the message across that communicating through text speak is not a negative thing. It is rather a new development that language has and will continue to adapt. 

Sincerely, 


Milly Vermeulen. 

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 25, 2017 at 1:55 AM

    I agree with what Milly wrote in this blog post because it does not simply say that, "we should accept new idiolects", but expands as to what the reason is behind this. In it, she goes into discussing how the English language has always evolved and even acknowledges that language is different today as it was years ago. What I really liked about Milly's blog post is that she did not just disagree with the editor, but chose to at least see it from his/her perspective first before writing so that it would not further the conflict. From this, the only question I'd have to ask her is if she has anymore knowledge as to how language has evolved through the years? Asking this question could make her argument even stronger as it brings in facts rather than solely opinions.

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