Though it was far from an official designation, I was generally known as the editor in my class last semester. When people had something that needed to be read they usually brought it to me. I would then pick their work apart with my merciless red pen and hand it back. I wasn't well liked thanks to my hearty revisions, but I still got a lot of work handed to me regardless.

On one memorable occasion one of my fellows presented me with a story he'd written. It wasn't long, or of huge importance - just a little review on a movie. I ran through it, checked off a few typos, underlined a few run on sentences - and then stopped.

Squinted a bit.

Drew a big circle around one word, plopped it on his desk and walked away.

He'd used 'lol' in a sentence.

He came back a few minutes later laughing his butt off, saying he'd not even noticed. I chuckled a bit along with him, though not without a certain amount of horrified worry. lol? In a sentence? Not on purpose but as an accident? Inconceivable.

Or at least it would have been a few years ago. Now, though? The Internet is taking over, and it has me rather concerned.

The problem is speed. That's what the Internet is about, speed and efficiency. Get everything said and done in as short a time as humanly possible. Generally this prompts users to truncate words, resort to abbreviations whenever possible and even insert numbers into their work. And when I say numbers, I mean words like l8r. (Is the extra 'ate' so difficult to type out, even when you're in a hurry?)

This consequently screws up teens when they try to write anything for school (or anything formal for ANYBODY, for that matter). Their typing habits, bad habits all, take over as soon as they sit down at the word processor. So even if they do use capitals in all the right places and punctuation where it's necessary, the result is work that's unorganized, nonsensical and riddled with typos and grammar problems.

Teachers might put up with it once. Multiple times, though? Not likely. And as much as they might try to hammer proper grammar into their students, the fact is they'll go back to Internet habits the moment they head home. It's hard to argue against improper use of their, they're and there when the teen is in the middle of some Halo death match.

The only suggestion I can make to counter this is encouraging students to clean up their language while using the Internet. Encourage the use of at least roughly proper English when on instant messengers. Perhaps even have classes dedicated to fixing the flaws in Internet language. These teens are all perfectly capable of speaking properly online - and, trust me, it can be done. I've pretty much always used full sentences and proper punctuation, even when in fast-paced games, and it's never really gotten me in trouble.

Please, teens out there. Don't destroy the English language. It's the only language I've got! I tried to speak French and it didn't work out! Halt your typo-riffic ways before all our words, phrases and sentences go down the toilet, if only because you'll never get a job if you use l33t speak on a resume.

Learn more about this author, Matt Bird.
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