U R GOING 2 LUV THIS: The Slaughter of the English Language
What happened next?
A guttural, primal noise slips from the mouth; the vocal cords tense and vibrate allowing sound to project from the lips – and the world changing skill of speech is formed.
That’s right: language.
Without it, our species would not have been able to survive the last ice age. It allowed the few humans left to communicate crucial locations of food and shelter. This skill is used by every living creature on earth, and has been the foundation for everything humanity has accomplished since Earth’s last global winter.
It is through language that our species flourished. As my mother puts it, “Language was our big trick…”
So why am I climbing up on my soapbox now? Well, it has to do with language! You cannot turn your head these days without seeing a slaughter of the English language. Text messaging and Instant Messaging has turned our beautiful language into a “Pigeon language” made up of short hand, slang, and numbers. That’s right, numbers! They don’t even belong in words! Numbers are meant to represent an amount of items; they are used to describe our world in mathematical terms not to replace words!
What’s worse? When people actually decide to use the extra two seconds to write out a complete word most of the time they still get it wrong!
For example: “They’re” “There” “Their”
Yes they all sound the same, but they have significantly different meanings! However, you will see these words used incorrectly all the time!
They’re - They are the “ ‘ “ replaces the “a” and allows the rest of the world “are” to move to the end of “They”.
There – In, at, or to that place or position.
Their – Belonging to or associated with a person of unspecified sex.
See? They all sound the same, but have VERY different meanings.
A few other slaps in the face of language?
Writing “i” instead of “I”, sure it seems like a simple mistake but not capitalizing the “I” takes away from its importance! The whole point of capitalizing the “I” is because it is referring to yourself! The English Language, for some silly reason, thinks that you are important and therefore when you are referenced you should have the respect of a capital letter. “Tonite” – A common misspelling seen in e-mails, text, and status posts; not just with that word but with most words what end with a “ght”. True, phonetically it makes the same sound but it’s just wrong! The word is “Tonight”, it doesn’t take that much time to write the extra few letters.
“UR” Really? You can’t put “You’re” or “Your” is it that difficult?
I could go on and on, but I am sure you are getting the picture at this point. Language was a beautiful and epic trick that not only saved our species but has been a crucial foundation for everything we have accomplished since then. If we continue to slaughter our precious language the way we do, we will end up with something similar to the garble of Idiocracy (2006) where people spoke a clusterf**k of slang, valley girl, hillbilly, and grunts.
I think spending the extra few seconds it takes write out a whole word, spell check, and grammar check is worth it when the alternative is sounding like a complete idiot.
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| Click here for more examples of people making fools of themselves Want some quick tips and help? Check out: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/ Finally, because we all could a little practice now and then: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ |
While I don't feel that foul language is needed to get a point across, and often makes some one sound less intelligent; I felt that this kid had a point behind all of the anger and crass words. Caution: Image below is rated "R".
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