My toughest challenge as a writer these days is texting. Not because I don’t grasp the technology or understand the convenience — I do.
I just can’t force myself to misspell words.
My cell phone doesn’t make typing easy, so entire sentences take effort. Where my 14-year-old would type “wht RU waring 2 movie?” I’d text, “What are you wearing to the movie?”, conjunctions and all.
“Mom, by the time you do all that, I’d be on my third or fourth text.” (Big eye roll.)
“At least no one would think I don’t know how to spell ‘wearing.’”
“You are so weird.”
As a copywriter and PR practitioner, I’ve spent decades trying to get people to use clear language in their communications, to never assume their audience knows what they’re talking about, and to avoid jargon like the plague.
Textspeak goes against all of that.
We didn’t have this problem with e-mail. Users were taught that messages wouldn’t always be received the way they were intended. A concise message can seem clipped. All caps reads like shouting. Be polite.
Textspeak is this generation’s secret code. They don’t want to be widely understood. They gloat over their shared abbreviations. It makes them cool.
I’m taking a stand against textspeak. Enough adults can’t spell already; let’s not breed a generation who spells without apostrophes and writes “nite” instead of “night.”
That’s the kind of laxity that brought us words like “ginormous.”
P.S. My favorite online dictionary is m-w.com. You can hear pronunciations and play word games — tell your boss it’s your daily vocabulary lesson.
For the more philanthropic, FreeRice.com lets you help feed the world while you learn new words — even more justification for that boss of yours.
Posted by cdashnaw 
