I recently read an article by John Humphrys, written on the 24th September, 2007 and titled “I h8txt msgs: how texting is wrecking our language”. I agree with some points of this article, especially in how it is ruining the English language. When people text they use lots of abbreviations such as U for “you”, R for “are”, WUU2 for “what are you up to?” This is because it might be quicker for some people. When it comes to doing tests, Certain individuals forget how to spell words and write in full sentences, missing out spelling, punctuation and grammar, and therefore not getting good English grades.

I was particularly impressed with his analogy of Mary – “Mary had a mobile, she texted day and night. But when it came to her exams, she’d forgotten how to write”. This is very true because when you’re writing a text message, you use lots of abbreviations For example, I was previously writing an exam and instead of writing you are, I actually did write “U” and “R”. I only noticed this at the end of the test, which meant I had to spend an extra 10 minutes going through the whole of my test correcting this. Luckily I finished 15 minutes early and had enough time, or otherwise I would have lost lots of marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. I do agree that abbreviations do affect young people’s spelling which is therefore messing up the English language and perverting the minds of the young.

I can understand that people use emoticons (or emojis) to express themselves quickly. Humphreys said that it has been 25 years since the emoticon was born, and they have evolved in this time from using punctuation to create a face, to actual images. Even in Microsoft Word now typing a colon and end bracket 🙂 it will automatically turn it into a J! Sending a picture or smiley face can instantly tell me someone is happy. However, I agree that it can be “irritating” and “absurd”. This smiley face does not tell me how the person is really feeling and I may read it differently to how they originally intended it. It would be better for them to express themselves through words because it’s more explanatory and I don’t have to spend ages working out what their vague emojis could mean.

Also, I agree with him being angry at the Oxford English Dictionary removing 16000 hyphens from words because they’re trying to make life easier for people using technology. However, in doing this, they’re removing 16000 instances of our cultural history, which though making it easier for the lazy, younger generation to spell words, causes a lot of the older generation who grew up with these spellings, including John Humphries, to have to learn completely new spellings. As such, now everyone is learning new spellings and where’s the point in that?

However, I don’t agree with the point where he says “it’s partly the physical sensation” (using a dictionary). Technology has advanced over the last 9 years and nowadays you can just look a word up and get its definition, which is quick and easy. Using an online dictionary still gives you all the information and spelling required, but it also gives you synonyms and origins and examples of the word in sentences; it will even give you hyperlinks to new words (if you don’t know what hyperlinks are you’d better catch up with the times). You argue that leafing through a dictionary is “infinitely more satisfying than looking something up on the internet”, however using these sites gives you just as much satisfaction and saves you 20 minutes.

My grandmother (quoting Oscar Wilde) always said to me sarcasm was the lowest form of wit. As such, I disagree with Humphrey’s thorough use of sarcasm throughout his article, “the spell-check (sorry, spellcheck)”. He isn’t being intelligent. He isn’t being funny. He’s just being disrespectful and obnoxious. He’s being sarcastic because he can’t get his own way and is reverting back to his childhood and is simply throwing his toys out the pram. If he had made his argument through discussion I believe more people would have listened to his point of view and maybe he would have received a better response.

Nowadays, people use technology to look up a word, e.g. on their phones, tablets, etc. Older generations may still prefer to leaf through dictionaries, to pick up books and read them to get knowledge. This is all well and good, but if we are trying to make society a better place and reduce the paper we use creating books, it would be a lot cheaper and easier to use technology instead. I don’t like the use of text abbreviations; they’re irritating and useless. Although, if the English language is to remain the same, technology is a brilliant resource that can help achieve this.

I h8 txt msgs 2 m8. I mean y wud any1 wnt 2 tlk lik dis? SNM.
(That’s say no more, FYI…)