[thechat] Nu Shortcuts in School R 2 Much 4 Teachers

[Martin Burns]

On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Madhu Menon wrote:

> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/19/technology/circuits/19MESS.html
>
>  From the "please save our language" department:
>
> <quote>
>
> As more and more teenagers socialize online, middle school and high school
> teachers like Ms. Harding are increasingly seeing a breezy form of Internet
> English jump from e-mail into schoolwork. To their dismay, teachers say
> that papers are being written with shortened words, improper capitalization
> and punctuation, and characters like &, $ and @.

I see that generally with people's writing - not only a lack of proper
spelling, but also an inability to *spot* that Word has helpfully
highlighted that 'ammendment' is mis-spelled.

Someone I worked with describes these as 'cockroaches' - little errors
that make you suspicious of the content and lead you to enquiring in more
detail than you would otherwise.

> This is sad. Even on instant messenger, I type out full sentences.

Yeah, absolutely. Although I *do* type very quickly, and would have to
slow down to think *how* to abbreviate in text-message style.

Cheers
Martin

---------------------------
"Names, once they are in common use, quickly
 become mere sounds, their etymology being
 buried, like so many of the earth's marvels,
 beneath the dust of habit." - Salman Rushdie