Yes

by Wayne Leon Learmond

Created on: February 14, 2010   Last Updated: February 15, 2010

Without a shadow of doubt text messaging has become the bane of the English Language.  It has become the antithesis and a big part of everything that is wrong with today's society.  To a big part of the population now, text messaging has become a way of 'short cutting' or 'skipping' round words that should be really written properly.  We have prostituted a beautiful language for the sake of technology, but will we ever be able to get that back again?

Text messaging has grown and grown until it has become an unstoppable monster invading every part of our lives. Gone are the days when people would just pick up the phone and talk to one another. Gone are the days when even letter writing was the 'norm; {those days seem a long long time ago now}.  No, technology has well and truly taken over even the way we communicate with each other now.  There is nothing worse, then being on a train, a bus or just walking down the street, without seeing someone with their head buried within their mobile phone, their thumbs dancing frantically over the keys, as if they have no time to even type the words down before going onto the next word.

The art of conversation has died a death because hardly anybody talks now, they communicate through texting. And when today's generation do actually talk to one another I have actually heard them say out loud the word LOL {laugh out loud} or {SOZ} for  'sorry'. My stepson has got into the habit of saying those words now. Alas all my hard work in trying to get him to talk properly, to use the English Language in the way it should be used has gone down the drain.

It makes me angry and very sad that a language that has given so much to the world, in terms of beauty,of its rich vocabulary, its depth, is being destroyed like this. Some people may say, that this 'texting' is just another expansion pack if you will, on top of the English Language as a whole. Just another part of the rich vastness and adaptability that this language is capable off, and of course in some respects they would be right.

If one looks at the history of the English Language, one would see how it has subtly changed over the centuries. How certain words that where spelt and said in a certain way, at some point in time, have now changed. The language has developed overtime alongside the society that it happens to be in.

Some may say that text messaging is merely an adaption of the English Language in today's society? That may be so, but when people shorten words to such an extent that it actually begins to have an effect on their everyday lives, in terms of being able to spell properly, use commas, quotation marks, full stops, etc and form properly sounding sentences, then something has gone badly wrong.

Very rarely do I see now children - and indeed young adults - who can actually write properly, who can form sentences that actually make sense. I suppose that one could say that text messaging has now become a whole new language all of its own. It is like a kind of pidgin English mixed in with Morse Code. that can be understood only by those who actually write it down.  It is also a very strange thing that when one tries to talk face to face with today's generation, it can become very uncomfortable, as you well know that they would much rather be texting their friends,

Texting has grown and grown and with it I believe a little of the English Language has died. The respect for the English Language has died too, and that is very very sad. The English Language has become like a commodity that one throws away when it has been used. It has become just like every other thing that this throwaway, wasteful and none-appreciative society uses and abuses, And it should never have been allowed to happen.

But it has happened, text messaging has crept upon us and now the monster is out of the box. Communication face to face, rarely takes place now, on train, plane, or bus journeys or even out on the streets, as everybody is too busy with their heads down texting rather then speaking. Life passes them by all around them, while the English Language passes them by too and dies.

Communication {talking orally} is slowly becoming a thing of the past as texting continues to grow. People are much more comfortable texting each other than actually speaking to each other. When it comes to sitting down with a pen and pad and writing and forming sentences then the results are there for all to see.  Who or what is to blame for this?  I believe that technology without a shadow of doubt is to blame for the destruction of the English Language.

With the rise of mobile devices, the pace of life has become faster, there is no time to stop and pause. Everything is rush rush rush, and even the way some of us communicate now, as I have mentioned, has really had a detrimental effect on not just the English Language, but our communication skills too.

The English Language is beautiful, it is adaptive, and it is fluid, will it ever die completely: who knows?  But today's generation have no idea whatsoever about the history behind our language, or what it has brought us, the richness of it the depth of it, the beauty of it when words are formed and spelt out in the proper manner.  They will never really know what it means to write in an organized manner, or to pick up a good book and to read sentences that actually make sense, instead of the horrible short-cuts we get now in text-language.

Today's society has, and is still missing out on something very important when it comes to being able to write and even talk in a way that makes sense. They have missed out on what past generations had and that was being able to read and write in a way that did not prostitute the English Language, but rather added to its richness.

I fear that we have gone too far down the road now where texting is concerned. I truly believe that texting has been - and is - the bane of the English Language as we know it. We are heading into a whole new world of how we write and communicate to each other in English. I feel that the only way, the only chance we have in being able to gain our language back, is by halting the flow of mobile phones, but this will never happen. Society has moved on, technology has moved on, the English Language has been adaptive over the centuries, but will it survive in its present form now?  To me that is highly unlikely.

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