This is an interesting thread. I think Jahman made some especially great points about the evolution of language, or at least the perception of it from one generation to the next.

Thanks, Mike!

I wouldn't have a problem with this hideously degraded new vernacular if it added something truly useful to our communication in exchange, but instead it just seems like grunting via keyboard.

That's exactly it: Efficiency on the keyboard! It takes too long to spell out thoughts and feelings on a keyboard (esp. the cellphone type), ergo the proliferation of standardized acronyms and emoticons. Further, when you speed read you're already only reading abbreviations without even noticing it, snce your eye only optically decodes the first and last letter of each word which is plenty good for the language center in your brain (Brocca's Area) to fill-in the missing letters given context and pass the concepts on to the frontal cortex for analysis.

We think almost exclusively in language, past the age of 4-6 anyway, so, the way I see it, the smaller our vocabulary becomes today the less our ability to translate thoughts into real world substance or action will be in the future. That's a future that scares me. That's a future without great new inventions or space travel, a future without sufficient resolution of language to communicate the differences between one element and another, when everyone has inevitably forgotten how to spell "Hidroj3n".

Think of the abreviation as a single symbol instead of individual letters, and as a synonym that replaces the original word. Taken to the extreme you end up with Chinese: Tens of thousands of individual symbols. If it works for them, it can also work for us.

When the Oxford dictionary added "bada bing" to their lexicon, that was the day I realized Queen's English was truly doomed. It was our last hope.

You've got to be kidding! "LOL!" :-) I checked with Wiktionary and "bada bing" is the short form of "bada bing bada boom". Is the long form also in the OED?

The only part that I really can't abide these days though is the addition of "lol" to the end of just about every statement I see online, regardless of whether or not the object of the statement has any humourous properties whatsoever..."That's a tree. lol!"A tree is not funny. It's a tree.I should say that my opinions only concern native English speakers. I hugely applaud anyone who attempts to learn new languages. I am certainly terrible at it myself!

Learning a new language becomes more difficult as you age. While kids can learn several languages simultaneously (and use them without mixing them!), adults have a far harder time. The difference is languages learned before age 11 "IIRC" all share the same are in Brocca's Area while languages learned later in life don't.

Perhaps I'm entirely wrong though. Maybe this is just a necessary and painful step before entering the Matrix. In there we should only have to remember 1 and 0 after all.-Mike

Aha! That explains all my troubles: I thought we were already "in" and the point was trying to get "out". "LOL"! :-)Cheers,- jahman.

Some good points again Jahman, and indeed the fonts used in street signs are chosen and created using similar ideas, where the shape or icon of a word is more important than the letters themselves when something must be read quickly. The brain fills in the rest from memory as you say. That memory though is the part I have an issue with. What happens when the original word these mangled icons are based on is inevitably forgotten generations from now due to lack of use? It's a slippery slope. As for typing on small keyboards... stop doing it, and demand something better. We need a direct neural connection, Matrix style, and soon. Our tools for communication in this age, even voice, are just too slow and imprecise.While I love efficiency in all forms, and can see the inherent beauty in this ever contracting "newspeak" (through the layers of hatred I have for it) something important is being lost. Like many things in life, that "something" is only going to be noticed once it's well and truly gone.When it comes to the English language I will happily trade speed for eloquence any day.I think I'll get a "doughnut" at the "drive through" now. ;)-Mike

"When it comes to the English language I will happily trade speed for eloquence any day."1. I hope you are kidding. Though I know you are serious. There is a time for speed in understanding and a time to reflect. Some very important ideas have been presented in written form, and must be ingested slowly.B. Of course language evolves. But it does not mutate.3. I don't have to type on my phone. I speak into it and it does the rest. It doesn't understad "lol" or "FWIW"or "IMHO". Thank goodnes.D. We may be confusing written and oral language. Whatever silly thing you type, the reader still has to translate into real language, Why waste time learning all these symbols.Bob

Jahman wrote (Broccaized version):

Tt's ey it: Ey on te kd! It ts to lg to sl ot ts ad fs on a kd (ep. te ce te), eo te pn of sd as ad es. Fr, wn yu sd rd yu've ay oy rg as wt en ng it, se yr ee oy oy ds te ft ad lt lr of eh wd wh is py gd fr te le cr in yr bn (Ba's Aa) to fl-in te mg ls gn ct ad ps te cs on to te fl cx fr as.

I seriously doubt anyone would find that the least bit comprehensible. Clearly, given all the letters in between the first and last, we do in fact process them even when speed reading, albeit as a gestalt rather than discrete process.This in fact is precisely why copy editing is such a difficult task. It takes an entirely different approach and skill set to spot errors.As already mentioned though, we do need to recognize the differences between written and oral, as well as formal and informal communications.

"When it comes to the English language I will happily trade speed for eloquence any day."1. I hope you are kidding. Though I know you are serious. There is a time for speed in understanding and a time to reflect. Some very important ideas have been presented in written form, and must be ingested slowly.

And at other times commands must be imparted quickly. Why does it have to be "either/or"? Can't it be both? Can't we have literature for our reading pleasure and SMS shorthand for messaging with friends and business associates?

B. Of course language evolves. But it does not mutate.

Nost so sure: Evolution in language could just be similar to evolution in nature: Mutation + Survival = Evolution.

3. I don't have to type on my phone. I speak into it and it does the rest. It doesn't understad "lol" or "FWIW"or "IMHO". Thank goodnes.

You do realize a "phone" of the mobile kind isn't really a just a phone anymore, rather a computer with a keyboard, music playing and recording, HD video and recording, two cameras, and WiFi and 4G for uploadnig media to social web sites, buying and sellng over eBay and other e-commerce webs and managing your finances and investments worldwide. Where have you been these last few years?

D. We may be confusing written and oral language. Whatever silly thing you type, the reader still has to translate into real language, Why waste time learning all these symbols.Bob

For speed. The young, who learn quickly and adapt, find abbreviations useful. If they didn't, the wouldn't use them. And you use them too: Take any serious aviation text, replace all abbreviations with their expanded meaning and it becomes unreadable. "Q.E.D.".

Jahman wrote (Broccaized version):I seriously doubt anyone would find that the least bit comprehensible. Clearly, given all the letters in between the first and last, we do in fact process them even when speed reading, albeit as a gestalt rather than discrete process.

You're not supposed to remove the imtermediate letters, only change them. Try again.

This in fact is precisely why copy editing is such a difficult task. It takes an entirely different approach and skill set to spot errors.

It's the other way around! Copyediting is so hard because our brain ignores intermediate letters, so to copyedit effectively we need to make an active efort to read into every word.Cheers,- jahman.

You aren't being very consistent. One of your early posts said that "text speak" was the wave of the future. Now you're saying both kinds of English are OK. There have always been some variation on both kinds.Again, what are you talking about? You said we need "text speak" so we don't need so many key-strokes. I'm saying I don't need key-strokes at all. I might ask you the same question about your location lately.Everyone uses abbreviations. Your aviation example "proves" nothing. The text becomes longer, that's all. You keep hinting that only the young are able to learn quickly and adapt. Maybe so, but the young just might lack patience, understanding, and discernment.My wife is a copyeditor. Her job is so hard because too many folks can't put an intelligent sentence together. Oh, by the way, she edits medical journals.Bob

As I wake up this morning, it has occurred to me that here is an example of miscommunication. Jahman, I think that you thought that I was saying that I talk on my phone instead of texting. You wondered where I have been? Phones do all kinds of things, now. I did not understand your response. Yes, I have a smartphone. If I choose, I almost never have to type anything. I don't need test speak because it's even faster to speak my emails and texts. I see this kind of thing as being more the wave of the future.Bob

I suppose the real test of being able to compose the King's (or Queen's) English comes when you have to write the final covering letter for the report to the company directors as to why you need to spend a couple of million bucks for new hardware in the Co. data centre.Or perhaps even simply explaining in print why you should be considered for that $150,000+ job.Speed writing is not an option. AR(The rule we used for report writing was that each had 3 sections: "Tell them what your going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you've told them.")AR

Well, how about what I alluded too in the next sentence of that post. You really must use the proper word in the proper place if folks are to understand you. I think so many of the grammar rules we all hate are there so that everyone who adheres to them can understand each other clearly. I see many times in these forums where arguments start because people misunderstand each other. "My hair is brown." and "My hare is brown." are two completely different things. The dangling participle, "The bird was observed using binoculars." is an example of how easy it is to confuse the facts(I didn't know birds knew how to use binoculars). In a world free of any type of absolutes, I could say this: " glommp figmock ddert xxzqwerthfgty h mooj." and one of two things might happen.1. I know exactly what that means, but no one else would. So why bother.B. Everyone would know what I mean. That would be nice.Ain't gonna happen, especially since I can't pronounce "xxzqwerthfgty".Bob

That is spelling not grammar.

That is spelling not grammar.

Could be both, in the case of the homophones in my example. But I think you are right in that I could have come up with better. What I think matters is that because of the rules we have, we can read things written 500 years ago. Of course the language has "evolved" somewhat, but it can be done with little trouble. And what we write today can be understood by someone from the past. If the language mutates completely, we might be in danger of being lost to the future.Bob

...And what we write today can be understood by someone from the past.

No one from 120 years ago would undertstand any of what we talk about in this forum (aviation, computers), regardless of the use of acronyms, grammar and spelling. Language only serves to communicates when there is a sufficient number of shared concepts.

If the language mutates completely, we might be in danger of being lost to the future.

So far we have been able to decode languages dead for millennia, so I don't think that danger exists, especially considering the amount of written and spoken examples of our current languages, samples (the good, the bad and the ugly) that continue to be generated as these languages evolve.Cheers,- jahman.

'The dangling participle, "The bird was observed using binoculars."'I'm not sure that this example is a true dangling participle, as opposed to a simple, but still grammatical, anbiguity. You could rearrange the order of that sentence to "Using binoculars, the bird was observed, and it would make perfect sense as to the meaning.Wiki gives examples of hanging participles. Here's one: "Reaching the station, the sun came out." The intended meaning is apparent with the application of common sense (that the sun appeared when the speaker of the sentence reached the station), but the actual meaning (if we take the sentence as grammatically correct) llinks "the sun" to "reaching" and is absurd. Doing the bird-binoculars trick to that example results in "The sun came out, reaching the station" which is still absurd.:(

'The dangling participle, "The bird was observed using binoculars."'I'm not sure that this example is a true dangling participle, as opposed to a simple, but still grammatical, anbiguity. You could rearrange the order of that sentence to "Using binoculars, the bird was observed, and it would make perfect sense as to the meaning.Wiki gives examples of hanging participles. Here's one: "Reaching the station, the sun came out." The intended meaning is apparent with the application of common sense (that the sun appeared when the speaker of the sentence reached the station), but the actual meaning (if we take the sentence as grammatically correct) llinks "the sun" to "reaching" and is absurd. Doing the bird-binoculars trick to that example results in "The sun came out, reaching the station" which is still absurd.:(

My example come from an international copy editors forum. I have to guess that they know what they are talking about. Jahman.True enough. Folks from 120 years ago wouldn't know anything about planes or computers. But they would know the language. Most folks from that time wouldn't understand what Edison was writing about, describing his work with electricity. But they could at least read it.There are ancient languages that we can not read. I can't give you an example off the top of my head. The Rosetta Stone was discovered by accident. Where it not for that discovery, ancient Egypt's language might still be a mystery to us. Consider the Inca. They left no record in the form of writing. No inscriptions, no wall carvings. All we know of them is what the Spaniards wrote after they conquered them. Who knows how accurate they were.Bob

The bird was observed using binoculars is grammatically correct just as much as The distance was measured using a ruler. The grammatical structure is the same.

Can anyone confirm that this particular bird was NOT using binoculars? Perhaps we have all jumped to a conclusion.As in: (Aware that he had no parachute, the pilot of the burning airplane jumped to a conclusion, and leaped to a certain death.) AR