Grammar suffers in texting world
Proper grammar is depleting in everyday language as more people rely on spellcheck and “text speak.”
With text messaging being a popular way to communicate, especially amongst high school and college students, texting vernacular has seeped into everyday language.
A popular way to denote the words “your” and “you’re” is to use the letters “u” and “r” together. For example, “Ur going to love my new dress.”
By using this for both the word “your” and the contraction of “you are,” it confuses teens about how to use it properly.
Because of this, I find even intellectual people like honors students and English majors in my classes, confusing these two words in everyday speech.
Don’t get me wrong, as a teen, I love texting and find it to be an excellent way to communicate. The only difference is that I can decipher between “text speak” and writing an essay for my English class. Sadly, many teens are unable to do so, and in that lies the problem.
A good thing about texting may be that people are writing more, and that is always a plus, but writing the wrong form of words constantly or incorrect spelling may prove harmful when you try to write a professional document, like college essays.
There are too many common mistakes to cover in one article, but the most frequent seem to be using the wrong form of their, there, and they’re, as well as “could of/ should of” when the right form would be “could have/ should have.”
Other mistakes don’t stand out as blatantly such as of/off and know/no.
While it is easy to say that teens are the only ones using grammar improperly, that is not necessarily the case. Many adults are also caught using grammatical errors.
The retail company Old Navy, was criticized for using incorrect grammar on college T-shirts they put out this summer.
The T-shirts read “Lets Go” followed by a specific college team each shirt represented. The correct phrase would have been “Let’s Go,” with an apostrophe before the “s.”
It’s sad to think that those T-shirts passed through approval of several head executives without any of them catching the error.
If retail stores are printing poor grammar on tees, then how are teens supposed to know the correct way to use grammar and contractions? Answer- they won’t, and they may start to believe that the wrong way is correct.
I for one don’t understand why it is so difficult to figure out contractions, when they were created to make things easier. If you can’t figure them out, please write out both words.
Teens often look up to celebrities as role models, which is why it is pitiful to see celebrities like Rhianna getting foreign tattoos with incorrect grammar.
Her tattoo read “Rebelle Fleur,” to mean “Rebel Flower.” However, in French, the words should be reversed to be correct grammar.
So now the tattoo reads “Flower Rebel,” which is more confusing than edgy.
When people use incorrect grammar, it makes them seem less intelligent and others don’t take them as seriously. That is why it is so important to learn accurate syntax.