Its Called English

There are thousands and thousands of people that share my opinion on the following subject but equally as many who say it's "easier" and in all reality just don't care. What am I so passionate about now? Text speak. I literally hate it. If you know me well enough to talk to me via text or indeed if you ever facebook chat me, read an e-mail I send or even a comment on some-one's status or wall post, there is one thing you will know that I do - I write using English. People don't write anymore they abbreviate and alter letters when it's unnecessary. I can appreciate that it might well be easier to text under you desk if you have to because maybe you don't have the ability to see whether your phone has 'corrected' a word to make whatever you were trying to say sounds like utter gibberish. I also understand the initial reasons all this abbreviated 'speech' came about - The dawn of the short message service.

Some of you may be pleased to hear (I was) that the first real sms message was sent in the UK through the Vodafone network and it said 'Merry Christmas'. It is a pity then, considering we sent the first message that we have no real standing in the mobile communication world but I suppose we can't have everything can we. Anyway, back to the point. Generally text speak doesn't bother me too much because at the moment it's sort of a hit and miss in my daily life, sometimes my facebook news feed is full of it other days I get to view what's happening without huffing about spelling and grammar. You might be wondering why it is that it's an issue for me, probably because I haven't explained it yet, I will, I just like to build up the tension. You may well be thinking "what's the big deal? Everyone does it." - If you thought that, you have just hit the nail on the head. Everyone does it and this has a long term and detrimental affect on the future of language, not just the English language, all of them.

By using technology instead of the basic tools like a pen and a paper we are restricting ourselves from using and maintaining something that has evolved over thousands of years. The sms has a limit of 160 characters and in my opinion a downward spiral has been getting bigger and deeper since. It is commonplace to use abbreviated words to shorten the length of a text message, the use 'lol' and other such terms if you know what I mean. I must admit that I am a 'lol'-er but I use it sparingly and it tends to only be women that I use it too which is something I don't really understand but that's another subject entirely. Now I do respect the fact that we have evolved a language to adopt our constantly changing technologically improving lifestyle. As a species we are the most adaptive on the planet and brilliantly we have the ability to affect change in drastic ways. My fear however that as we grow and move forward we will no longer write and I am genuinely saddend by that.

As it stands, there are only small portions of the general demographic that do this semi-annoying text/abbreviated speech - 'everyone' is a drastic exaggeration. There are slightly different twists on what my issue is now that I come to think about it. I have a well known pride for being from the Black Country, we might not have the best accent in the world but, the industrial revolution started through the biggest steel works in the world and that was right here. My point is that I used to and sometimes still do write in Black Country. I don't shorten words for the sake of it and I will use the correct grammar i.e. apostrophes for abbreviations like comin' but that's just because it's part of me and I like to use it comically not because it's easier - if anything it takes more thinking. The fast paced world of texting and facebook and msn and twitter and all those social networking sites (which again I admit to taking part in) are increasing the rate of language and vocabulary decline. As we created and adapted a way of talking with 160 character limit in a text message we have now continued (to a certain extent) that trend even though it is becoming unnecessary. We have the time to think and really put down what we mean.

I am writing this and thinking that I should use some examples of what I mean; words that I hate to see re-written pointlessly, but I can't. I physically can't bring myself to type that way, I am browsing the culprits on facebook to show you but it is not going well. Quite ironically I am having a huff-free day and can't find anything to help emphasise my point but it seems that I have deleted the final few that were annoying me. I'm sure it's clear and obvious the kind of thing I mean. I would like to be able to blame 'the kids' because that tends to be the thing to do, unfortunately it is not all them (although they are most definitely a large part of the problem - but I'll come back to that) I see it more with people my age. For those of you that don't know I'm 24 and if I started speaking or writing that way, I would be disappointed expect someone to punch me. I feel let down in a way but I can completely understand that it's just through force of habit and that maybe it is easier but please, come on. its really not that hard to do.

So, back to 'the kids' then. My point about kids and I would like to affirm that I know not all kids will do this but I remember what I was like to bare with me. I am not thick, stupid or dumb and I'm not overly intelligent either, but nevertheless I got bored at school really easily. I would often just doodle or daydream and generally just not pay too much attention and I managed to get away with it more often than not because I could pretty much pick up what I needed to without putting too much effort in. My long winded point is this, I didn't have a multitude off applications on my mobile that I could be even more easily distracted by. I had snake (I still think its awesome now) and pay as you go so I couldn't spend all day texting and on top all that I only had access to the internet in the I.T. rooms. Imagine how rubbish my GCSE results would have been had I had all this to take my mind of whatever lesson I was in. In all fairness, my results aren't that bad and in no way am I trying to say your little brother or sister is thick but I would be very surprised if they don't spend a little more than just their lunchtimes messing around on their phones. I don't have kids in constant contact with me and there is only one person in my friend list that is still at school and I am quite happy to say that I never have to huff at his status updates.

The written word dates back to 3400 - 3200BC where the Sumerians were using characters for the first time instead of symbols. That's more than five thousand years of thinking and reason and the use of language for the development of culture. Five. Thousand. Years. Writing has been frowned upon as yielding too much thought - that has a lot to do with religion and I won't go there - however the fact remains that if civilisations long gone hadn't started documenting their life and times then we would have no idea of they were or how they lived. If people didn't use their imaginations we would not have some of the most famous works of fiction we know of today, there are thousands to name but just think of any classic author or book and you will know what I mean. We are an intelligent species, we use our minds to think, plan and write and I am concerned that we are 'dumbing' ourselves down and sullying everything that the past left for us. The more our world improves the less we have to think and that is why our general vocabulary and use of the written word are withering away into nothingness.