Here's an interesting column:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/magazine/20wwln-medium-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazin e&oref=slogin

One, we've got people reading these things and getting stuff out of them. Talk radio for the massers, only it's just ASCII.

I normally, either leave it, or insert stuff in brackets, where some interpetation makes sense. The thread gives the thing context, and maybe that's the best way to go about it.

Thoughts on this anyone?

I find the sloppy composition found in much message board communication grating for two reasons. First, English was not my first language, and I vividly remember all that was involved in mastering the English language so that I would not come across as an alien or as somebody with a linguistic difficulty. Second, sloppily composed messages have a greater potential for being misinterpreted, leading to unnecessary arguments and flame wars. I believe that the rules and guidelines for composition that I studied in grades 1-12 still work in today's environment.

I think that the main theme of that article was that the context where language is presented matters. Thus, quoting a message board posting in a newspaper or magazine article, where very careful attention is paid to style, spelling, and grammar, can make the author of that quoted post appear ignorant. Or, trying to recreate the non-standard aspects of a spoken dialect, Mark Twain-style, can make the author of the piece look racist. If I were a writer, I would summarize the message board posts or quotes to avoid the possibility of the readers interpreting the piece as a slam on the person being quoted. The only exception to this, of course is if the piece were specifically about language and dialects.

I have some sympathy for the use of text messaging abbreviations on mobile phones and similar devices because keying in the messages is tedious and the length of the messages is restricted. This is very similar to the situation when using Morse Code, and Morse Code users, such as HAM radio operators, developed their own set of abbreviations and codes to avoid having to key entire phrases or sentences. When one has a full QWERTY keyboard, however, I do not think that one could say that it is "tedious" to key in the full text of one's message.

"....sloppily composed messages have a greater potential for being misinterpreted, leading to unnecessary arguments and flame wars. I believe that the rules and guidelines for composition that I studied in grades 1-12 still work in today's environment."

I agree........

What really, really tends to drive me nuts about message boards sometimes is the posts which just go on and on and on as the users' thoughts just seem to ramble on into one big, huge jumble of a sentence which eventually becomes a big long paragraph, not even using a period or anything, sometimes not even so much as a comma, and then you have to stop for a moment and try to process what you have just read, give your eyes a break, and come back to start reading only to lose track of where you left off, so then you go back to the beginning and you try to start reading all over again, and the cycle just repeats over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and.......................

*takes a breath*

& then thers teh n00bz who tipe in al lwr-case & omit puncuaion an gramer an put bad spelling typos an wierd abbrs everywere, probalby drives u nuts & does me too lololol

n dnt evn gt me strd on teh ppl hu us txt lol.......

Truth be told, I think plain, normal English was yet another casualty of Eternal September. I was with a friend (who still has AOL access) and we were looking at some of the forums there. (Yup, AOL still has forums! Thankfully they are a dying breed.) I had to have my friend interpret because I couldn't even make sense of what anyone was trying to say!

(Let's not be too hasty; I have been known to commit those same errors myself from time to time.... ;o)

One thing I have noticed about txt shrthd is its striking resemblance to the old "Speedwriting" shorthand. I often can't help but think, if dictation was ever to catch on again as a "mainstream" secretarial duty, we've a whole generation of kids among us now who'd likely make decent transcriptionists....!! ;o)

I use a personal form of speed writing when on conference calls, or in meetings. There never is enough human throughput at those times. Been doing it since I was a kid. It's a mix of symbols, abbreviated words, my own personal words, and phrases that capture connotation.

Interesting comments on English Alfredo. Never considered that angle. You are quite right too! K-12 grammar would get us all through. Many professionals I work with don't even have that.

I am too young to have done much office work in the era before e-mail. The only office that I worked in where there were no networked computers was the USDA Fish Diseases and Parasites Research Laboratory in Auburn, AL. This was a summer internship that I did in 1992. That office had so few people that almost all communications was handled at the daily status meetings. I don't recall seeing or receiving any memos there.

I have noticed that the quality and writing style of e-mails in business settings varies widely, depending on the author. However, I don't know whether the overall quality and style of business e-mails in the places where I have worked has changed or evolved in any way since the mid 1990s. What I mainly observe in business e-mails are compromises made in the name of speed. Such compromises might include incomplete sentences, rambling stream-of-consciousness writing, incomplete sentences, and lack of punctuation and capitalization.

Although, as I pointed out above, I haven't been able to gauge trends in others' writing, I believe that my own writing is getting worse over time. I think that part of the problem is that my work does not call for me to do enough narrative writing, such as engineering reports that describe an investigation and the solutions implemented to solve the problem, to keep my skills sharp. Application notes, which I authored occasionally at my previous job, were a slightly different beast because the wording was heavily massaged by marketing and other applications engineers; these documents also tended not to have the linear "storytelling" flow that an engineering report would have, as they were written to explain a variety of possible solutions to a prospective user. On top of that, I think that modern tools, such as automatic spelling and grammar checking, have allowed me to become complacent. [Note: I am writing this post on an older version of Netscape, which does not feature spell-check.]

In forums, I completely ignore spelling. Conversational writing just isn't worth the hassle. Things have gotten a whole lot better because of the spell checkers.

IMHO, it really should be a more free form thing. Expression is pretty limited as it is. Might as well let it bend and twist to fit the author.

Lots of people don't have significant writing demands. And most of the ones I know have degraded. That one rings true to me.

There are a growing number of people that don't value simple, core language skills. It's worrysome, particularly with the kids.

Many of them have taken to saying the letters out loud now! If that does not just gall me, I don't know what does.

Actually saying LOL, IDN (I don't know), etc... is just nuts! This may be the first "really getting old and am not gonna join the crowd" thing I've experienced in this area.

kskd sez: There are a growing number of people that don't value simple, core language skills. It's worrysome, particularly with the kids.

DJFRESH RULES!



Sometimes from a mobile unit I've taken a bunch of extreme shortcuts just to make a post I might have not otherwise made if I had to do it in full proper English, punctuations and all.

Oh, what galls me the most is the non-use of paragraph breaks. Big blocks of text is about as fun to read as ancient Greek Algebra!

Author: Missing_kskd Sunday, July 20, 2008 - 12:22 am Top of page Bottom of page Link to this message View profile or send e-mail Edit this post Here's an interesting column: One, we've got people reading these things and getting stuff out of them. Talk radio for the massers, only it's just ASCII. I normally, either leave it, or insert stuff in brackets, where some interpetation makes sense. The thread gives the thing context, and maybe that's the best way to go about it. Thoughts on this anyone? Author: Alfredo_t Monday, July 21, 2008 - 1:58 pm Top of pageBottom of page Link to this message View profile or send e-mail Edit this post I find the sloppy composition found in much message board communication grating for two reasons. First, English was not my first language, and I vividly remember all that was involved in mastering the English language so that I would not come across as an alien or as somebody with a linguistic difficulty. Second, sloppily composed messages have a greater potential for being misinterpreted, leading to unnecessary arguments and flame wars. I believe that the rules and guidelines for composition that I studied in grades 1-12 still work in today's environment. I think that the main theme of that article was that the context where language is presented matters. Thus, quoting a message board posting in a newspaper or magazine article, where very careful attention is paid to style, spelling, and grammar, can make the author of that quoted post appear ignorant. Or, trying to recreate the non-standard aspects of a spoken dialect, Mark Twain-style, can make the author of the piece look racist. If I were a writer, I would summarize the message board posts or quotes to avoid the possibility of the readers interpreting the piece as a slam on the person being quoted. The only exception to this, of course is if the piece were specifically about language and dialects. I have some sympathy for the use of text messaging abbreviations on mobile phones and similar devices because keying in the messages is tedious and the length of the messages is restricted. This is very similar to the situation when using Morse Code, and Morse Code users, such as HAM radio operators, developed their own set of abbreviations and codes to avoid having to key entire phrases or sentences. When one has a full QWERTY keyboard, however, I do not think that one could say that it is "tedious" to key in the full text of one's message. Author: Motozak2 Monday, July 21, 2008 - 2:30 pm Top of pageBottom of page Link to this message View profile or send e-mail Edit this post "....sloppily composed messages have a greater potential for being misinterpreted, leading to unnecessary arguments and flame wars. I believe that the rules and guidelines for composition that I studied in grades 1-12 still work in today's environment." I agree........ What really, really tends to drive me nuts about message boards sometimes is the posts which just go on and on and on as the users' thoughts just seem to ramble on into one big, huge jumble of a sentence which eventually becomes a big long paragraph, not even using a period or anything, sometimes not even so much as a comma, and then you have to stop for a moment and try to process what you have just read, give your eyes a break, and come back to start reading only to lose track of where you left off, so then you go back to the beginning and you try to start reading all over again, and the cycle just repeats over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and....................... *takes a breath* & then thers teh n00bz who tipe in al lwr-case & omit puncuaion an gramer an put bad spelling typos an wierd abbrs everywere, probalby drives u nuts & does me too lololol n dnt evn gt me strd on teh ppl hu us txt lol....... Truth be told, I think plain, normal English was yet another casualty of Eternal September. I was with a friend (who still has AOL access) and we were looking at some of the forums there. (Yup, AOL still has forums Thankfully they are a dying breed.) I had to have my friend interpret because I couldn't even make sense of what anyone was trying to say!(Let's not be too hasty; I have been known to commit those same errors myself from time to time.... ;o) One thing I have noticed about txt shrthd is its striking resemblance to the old "Speedwriting" shorthand. I often can't help but think, if dictation was ever to catch on again as a "mainstream" secretarial duty, we've a whole generation of kids among us now who'd likely make decent transcriptionists....!! ;o)Author: Missing_kskd Monday, July 21, 2008 - 6:50 pm Top of page Bottom of page Link to this message View profile or send e-mail Edit this post I use a personal form of speed writing when on conference calls, or in meetings. There never is enough human throughput at those times. Been doing it since I was a kid. It's a mix of symbols, abbreviated words, my own personal words, and phrases that capture connotation. Interesting comments on English Alfredo. Never considered that angle. You are quite right too! K-12 grammar would get us all through. Many professionals I work with don't even have that.

> Actually saying LOL, IDN (I don't know), etc... is just nuts!

This is exactly the same as amateur radio operators who use abbreviations, such as QRM, QTH, 73s, etc., when talking on the air. These abbreviations were developed for Morse Code communications, where it would be a lot more tedious to key "interference," "location," and "best regards." However, for many HAM radio people who had to learn to send and receive Morse Code in order to become licensed, the use of these abbreviations spilled over to all areas related to amateur radio in any possible way!

I see the parallels.

Hmmm....

Still don't like it. I would never walk into a room and CQ, CQ, CQ de KSKD!

I had never given much thought to the use of HAM radio abbreviations in voice modes until I read an article in which a HAM was saying that these abbreviations don't belong on FM repeaters. When he explained how these abbreviations came about, his concerns made perfect sense. I would never say "CQ CQ CQ" when walking into a room, when making a phone call, or when writing a letter or e-mail, either.

Does anybody remember the "10" codes from CB radio? How did these originate? Again, as CB was a voice mode, using numeric codes wouldn't have helped communications very much. For instance, is it really that much easier to use the code "10-4" as an acknowledgment, instead of "roger," "yes," or some other phrase? I suspect that the reason that "10-4" caught on with many CBers was that it sounded like hip CB lingo used by those "in-the-know." I believe that the same thinking applies to newer HAM radio operators and to younger users of text messaging abbreviations.

The "10" code was from law enforcement usage. It was better to say "we're 10-7 at the Dunkin donuts" than having to say "we'll be off the air for a bit while we go into Dunkin Donuts and half a cup of coffee and a couple of chocolate glazed king size".

Or if you needed to take a 10-100 or 10-200.

After writing my previous post, I read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-code , which answered a lot of my questions. I find it interesting that CBers adopted the 10 codes, as most of them would only have been useful to law enforcement. One aspect of these codes that I had not considered is that the initial "10" is intended purely as an attention-getting signal.