"Textese" is Not Good and here's why...

[AndyFromMonday]

And language changes all the time, new words being added to the dictionary and old words becoming arcane is not new. Here's something said in Old English

But text speech doesn't add new words to the language. It's a misspelling of commonly used words for no reason at all. I

 

[Wintermoot]

I refrain from using it since it gives a unprofessional look to my posts.

 

[QuantumT]

Claiming that the other person's evidence in support of the other person's point isn't sound, then offering up only anecdotal evidence in support of your own seems a bit inconsistent.

Not defending text speak or anything, just saying that if you're going to attack someone's evidence, you should probably offer up something better than anecdotes.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

I speak, and write differently based on the situation. We all do. If you don't you'll have trouble living in the real world.

I just wanted to quote this and follow it up with a healthy dose of "what are you yammering on about"?

So, in order to live in this "real" world of yours we need to switch between typing like a drunk Ferret on a keyboard and typing normally?

I beg to differ.

When I was growing up we didn't have the internet or mobile phones. The work we did in School was put down on paper as full words.

We managed quite well in this "real world" until people decided that shortening words was quicker. Now not only do people use it because it is quicker it is used as actual literacy. Schools have been given pieces of work with the spelling all in this nonsense "textese".

Most people speak and write the same as they have done for many years BECAUSE we live in the real world.

What I'm saying is when you talk to your friends, and you talk to your boss you speak differently. When you write a text to your mate asking if he wants to go out to the pub you use a different tone and standard to writing academically. Notice how young kids speak the same way to everyone because they haven't learned that skill yet. Using slang and "textspeak" is fine as long as you know when to use it and when not to.

 

[omega 616]

It conditions a person to believe that it doesn't matter HOW something is communicated; the implied message is all that matters

Lets face it most people these days just "fill up food courts" (as Bill Burr puts it), they are never going to progress the human race in anyway.

Keeping that in mind to they really need to use perfect speech all the? I am not saying using text speak in an essay was okay 'cos it's not. What I am saying is these people are going to live life using the most basic of words, they will never even know "hyperbole" or "asinine" exist let alone what they mean so do they all need to be sat around writing and speaking in a very perfect way? No. Do you sit around and talk to family and friends, speaking perfectly, throwing in massive complex words? No.

You should also watch this,
Stephen Fry says what I just said in a much more eloquent and articulate way, which is much more likely to sway your view point. For instance at one point he comments on how people always get excited by language when other people use it wrongly, they never do it "for the sound sex of it" (his words, not mine) ... trust me, listen to it, if anybody can give new perspective it's this man!

Men like Stephen should rule the world!

 

[Karma168]

In my experience, "textese" does NOT train a person in the "manipulation of phonetics." What it does is condition a person to believe that everything can (and perhaps should) be communicated as simply as possible. It also conditions a person to believe that it doesn't matter HOW something is communicated; the implied message is all that matters.

I'm going to be 'that guy' and point out that this is a similar reason as to why there is a major difference between 'English' English and 'American' English. Americans have over time dropped the use of more complex methods of spelling in favour of simpler methods (e.g 'f' in favour of 'ph' (i.e Sulfur instead of Sulphur))

Textese could be considered the same (up to a point), if the text is clear and legible by 99% of English speakers then is this a problem? I agree that texts like "cnt blve tht hapnd, th stry didnt mke snce" is just plain ridiculous but some in some text the only short hand used is a lack of punctuation (i.e youre instead of you're) or one word meaning multiple things (i.e your denoting both ownership and as a contraction of you are). There are already words with multiple meanings, it isn't that bad if others gain that trait is it?

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Well you're an English teacher which is where you're standards for correct grammar come from, maybe my being a journalism student gives me a similar view on citing sources and backing up claims. But you're right, this is just a forum discussion, not a formal debate. But maybe don't make absolute assertions, using words like definitely and certainly, and then get defensive when someone points out your argument is no more definite or certain than the one you're trying to debunk.

Fair enough. My tone and usage of adjectives such as "definitely" did imply a level of certainty or objective validity in expressing my opinion, and that was my mistake. I'm also sorry for getting defensive.

Wow, I think this may be the first time I've become involved in a semi-heated forum discussion that resolved itself quite peacefully.

 

[Lawnmooer]

I hate "Textese"

I don't ever use it. I always try to spell everything correctly (Whilst also using correct grammar and punctuation) even at times where I have to tell people things through text with less than a second to do so (Such as when I'm leading a group/raid in a MMO, since I'm usually tanking I have 1 Global Cooldown in which to type to people that may be doing things wrong (No I don't use Ventrillo since I don't own a mic))

My friends all think I'm weird because of this (Stuff like Facebook messages and e-mails I send all use correct spellings, whereas in return I get some hieroglyphs to decipher) they ask me why I do it, I say it help me to spell and also keeps my vocabulary expanding.

They often accidentally use "Textese" in the middle of essays and assignments they are writing which results in it not being accepted. They also all have very poor spelling (When they are doing said assignments they tend to ask me how to spell a lot of things, they also don't understand at least 30% of the words I use when I'm giving them advice on what to write about)

I guess I wouldn't mind it as much if people only used it when they needed to (Such as lack of time or if they have limited amounts of characters to use for the message) but as it is now they use it everywhere (Some even use acronyms like "BRB" "LOL" and "OMG" when speaking...)

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Do you sit around and talk to family and friends, speaking perfectly, throwing in massive complex words? No.

Actually, I do.

I frequently have complex discussions with my wife and my friends that include massive complex words. And while I don't speak perfectly at all times, I do strive to avoid slang as a rule, unless I'm tired, angry, frustrated, or otherwise in some state that pushes me to not care about how effective my spoken words are.

 

[BRex21]

I have interviewed potential employees who put "textese" into resumes and cover letters. It is simply not appropriate, and don't get me started on the people who SAY lol. When I text I spell the whole word, and tend to look down on people who don't during anything remotely serious.
Oh, and to clarify, this isn't fast food or anything, I work in the BioTech industry, with science and all that jazz, D00D U SHD T0T411Y Hier ME wont get you very far.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

...today I actually saw this thread (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.313258-Textese-seems-to-help-develop-english-skills-not-hinder) actually DEFENDING the use of text speak, quoting "scholarly" articles (that were not seemingly not peer-reviewed). These articles claim that the use of text speak shorthand, such as "plz," is actually helping people learn how to "manipulate phonetics," and, thus, text speak is not leading to a degeneration of language.

Why does this strike you as not peer reviewed? A very brief check of the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning where the results were published at least seem like it has a peer review process [http://jcal.info/manuscript_review_policy/index.htm]. I'm not an expert at all, but it seems legit on its face.

In my experience, "textese" does NOT train a person in the "manipulation of phonetics." What it does is condition a person to believe that everything can (and perhaps should) be communicated as simply as possible. It also conditions a person to believe that it doesn't matter HOW something is communicated; the implied message is all that matters.

This line of thinking, this mindset, is definitely degenerative. Maybe not to the terminal point that some people believe, but it certainly isn't helping people learn reading and writing skills, as some people attempt to claim.

I guess I'm just not thrilled about you presenting your personal anecdote as "debunking" the study. Traditionally, that word is usually employed with a little more scholarly perspective. I 100% sympathize with your frustration seeing non-academic language in an academic setting, and I acknowledge that headlines like "Textese gr8 training 4 poets of 2moro" could make a teacher want to tear his/her hair out. I guess I'd just prefer to see more people (especially educators) "debunking" the lousy science writing rather than the source study.

The less said about the news writeups the better - they're sub-par at best. Still, I think the actual study is not implausible. From what I could tell from the abstract, the core data of the study the media latched on to was that frequent texters read on average no worse and sometimes better than infrequent texters. I can believe that; contractions and abbreviations can train our eyes for the most salient letters of common phrases without having to read whole words one letter at a time. That sounds less controversial (and less exciting), right?

TLDR: I'm not convinced the actual study is BS, but I think it's obfuscated rather than revealed by bad science writing

I never used the term debunking, nor was I striving to establish my anecdote as a basis for substantiated scholarly opinion. I was just sharing my personal experience and opinion on the matter.

Browse the thread on the conversation between me and Spot1990 if you want more details in this regard.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I've seen multiple threads decrying the use of "textese" or "txt spk" (retching noise), and I'm glad. On of the reasons I like the escapist is that the user base seems to have a level of respect for intelligence, and that kind of respect is a rare thing on the internet.

But then today I actually saw this thread (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.313258-Textese-seems-to-help-develop-english-skills-not-hinder) actually DEFENDING the use of text speak, quoting "scholarly" articles (that were not seemingly not peer-reviewed). These articles claim that the use of text speak shorthand, such as "plz," is actually helping people learn how to "manipulate phonetics," and, thus, text speak is not leading to a degeneration of language.

I'm not a researcher, nor am I a linguist or sociologist. But what I am is a teacher, and I'd like to offer up an anecdote:

During my first year of teaching I taught secondary English. Of course, when you have class full of 16 and 17-year-old students, everyone is going to have a cell phone, and the majority of my students were fluent in "textese."

I, of course, had them write multiple essays and papers over the course of the year, and on more than one occasion, I saw the use of slang and shorthand WITHIN ACADEMIC WRITING. When I explained to the class why this was unacceptable, several students attempted to argue with me, asserting "Why does it matter HOW I write it or say it as long you as you understand that I mean?" They were actually trying to justify the use of slang/shorthand/textese in academic writing.

In my experience, "textese" does NOT train a person in the "manipulation of phonetics." What it does is condition a person to believe that everything can (and perhaps should) be communicated as simply as possible. It also conditions a person to believe that it doesn't matter HOW something is communicated; the implied message is all that matters.

This line of thinking, this mindset, is definitely degenerative. Maybe not to the terminal point that some people believe, but it certainly isn't helping people learn reading and writing skills, as some people attempt to claim.

Brevity is not equivalent to simplicity. Do you not teach your students to write concisely? I'm not arguing that text speak should be used in academic writing, especially not an English class, I'm merely pointing out the fact that just because it's longer, that doesn't mean it will be more complex. The clouds are dark and water is falling from the sky and we call it rain. That is not a complex, or a good sentence, but it is lengthy.

That said, I think certain forms of text speak are acceptable in some academic circles. I don't find it completely abhorrent in scientific circles, where the purpose is to convey the meaning in the most brief and concise manner possible, but it is totally unacceptable in an English class, where the purpose is to show your ability to wield formal English.

To an extent, I agree. Concision is very important and I do try to teach that.

But neither brevity, nor simplicity, nor complexity, nor any characteristic of written language is as important as its effectiveness, and for language to be effective, it needs to be standardized: there must be a standard set of rules of definitions. The alternative is confusion and semantic miscommunication.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Maybe I'm just being a bit of a dick, but I find it weird that the OP complains about the lack of citing peer reviewed evidence in one thread, and proceeds to argue the point with an anecdote.

Which is why I preceded the point by saying that I was not a researcher, sociologist, or linguist. While I was debunking the scholarly validity of the articles presented, I attempted to imply that I would not be approaching my argument from a scholarly perspective.

So even when I was employing proper grammar in attempt to communicate a complex opinion, there was something lost in translation. Imagine the communication breakdown if I wrote in text-speak.

And there are people who still insist that correct grammar isn't as important as literature nerds and grammar police claim?

D#13 (yes that was completely intentional) never said he didn't see your justification for not citing any sources, just that it's funny you chose not too. Surely as an English teacher you should know that "In response to your point which you pulled out of your ass, I present my own point with a similar anal origin" is not a good way to debate. Doesn't take a genius to figure out fighting fire wit fire is a bad idea, same applies to fighting unfounded opinions with unfounded opinions.

I questioned the validity of the research that was presented.

I then stated that I was not in a position to argue from a scholarly perspective myself.

I then offered a personal anecdote related to the topic and drew a simple argument based on that personal experience. I understand that it's not well-founded argument since it is limited to my personal experience, but I had already established I wasn't attempting to create a well-founded scholarly argument, but rather, my own personal opinion on these matters.

Maybe I didn't communicate that point clearly enough, so I'll be as direct as I possibly can. When I said "I'm not a reasearcher, sociologist, or linguist," I was attempting to establish: "What I'm about to say is not founded in research; it is my personal opinion."

If you want to argue that my point is unfounded, bravo. You're regurgitating a point I attempted make in my original post and then expanded upon in my reply to thenumberthirteen. Am I not allowed to call out someone's research as unfounded and then follow up with my personal opinion on the subject, all the while maintaining that I'm not attempting to argue from a scholarly perspective? In formal debate this would not fly, but on a damned internet forum, why not?

Maybe try to get a good understanding of where someone is coming from, and/or lower your expectations, before you accuse that person of pulling things out of their ass.

I understood what you were saying. Also, the fact that you are posting this on a forum (too me at least) generally means that what you say is going to be opinion based. The entire argument going against you is completely semantics and is just dodging around the point that you made:
I believe that textese is bad and here is a real life example that happened to me to show why I believe this.
I don't really understand how that could have been difficult for anyone to get...

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Because I've been terribly serious during this discussion and I don't want to be known as some kind of austere, grammar-policing, teacher person, I thought this would be a good moment to say that "textese" sounds like "testes" (another name for "testicles"), and every time think about this I get an immature grin on my face.

 

[Unesh52]

For a teacher who presumably had to attend college, you sure seem to have neglected to make a proper argument with this little rant. You confidently assert that it's ridiculous to defend the use of so called "textese," but offer no word on how or why. Why it is inappropriate to attempt to communicate "as simply as possible?" In fact, this has always been the foundational rule of all my writing instruction throughout my educational career; never express in 100 words what you can express in 10. If this new language can impart the same level of understanding in the audience that more conventional speech can in a shorter space, then how is it not better? Why does it matter "how something is communicated," as long as the message is the same?

Especially considering the way you've worded your derision, you don't get to assert your conclusion that easily. That being said, I don't necessarily advocate the use of this language. There's a lot of nuance, connotation, and convention tied up in proper academic language and grammar. At the moment, there are no standards regarding "textese," meaning to use it would inevitably invite confusion. Surely though, it could be integrated and standardized. Whether this is a good idea is a little less clear. Surely, "plz" is simpler and easier to write (and even read) than "please," but to adopt that might cause further confusion in the already labyrinthine and contradictory realm of English phonetics. I honestly don't know. It's sort of a moot point right now anyway -- standards are as they are now, and changing them will always be a slow process. You have to learn them, even if that's not how they will stay.

And frankly expecting a student to understand that is a little much. Don't presume your more experienced intuition is available to all.

EDIT: And in response to your sentiment that you're just "stating an opinion" based on "personal experince," just... no. You still made a non-argument. You still need to actually support your opinion if you want to be taken seriously. I don't mean you need to show me research, I just mean you need to have a premise -- at all -- to support your conclusion that "textese" (which does, to your credit, sound like testes) is an indefensible abomination. Because when you come in and just say that, it sounds like you're just butthurt because your teachers back when you were in school wouldn't have let you get away with it.

 

[omega 616]

Do you sit around and talk to family and friends, speaking perfectly, throwing in massive complex words? No.

Actually, I do.

I frequently have complex discussions with my wife and my friends that include massive complex words. And while I don't speak perfectly at all times, I do strive to avoid slang as a rule, unless I'm tired, angry, frustrated, or otherwise in some state that pushes me to not care about how effective my spoken words are.

Yeah, I don't mean having discussions about metaphysics how a super fluid works. I mean like when your watching NFL and describing the ball being thrown like Joey in friends when he finds the thesaurus function on his laptop.

(god, I hate laugh tracks!)

Nobody says something like "the athlete gave the inflated leather oval ball, gravitational and kinetic energy with enough velocity to make it travel the desired distance where upon the other athlete absorbed the energy, which dissipated around his body as he caught it" do you? You say "that guy launched the thing 90 yards to that skinny dude!".

Like Stephen said, it's about suitability.

 

[theheroofaction]

So let me get this straight, people are going about and writing their academic texts without looking like total snobs.

How is this bad exactly?

 

[SadakoMoose]

Pretty soon, we'll all be speaking and writing some form of Newspeak. Though hopefully not for the reasons of thought suppression Orwell suggests, but it'll eventually happen. We've already started with adding things like "lol" and "omg" into the dictionary.

1984, here we come...

Oh no you don't!!
Stop right there!
That is no way, shape, or form what George Orwell intended to convey with 1984!
It was basically Orwell's thesis on a number of topics, nationalism and socialism being two of them, but not freaking text messages.
That, and your in violation of the 1984 reference act of 1987.
Find another dystopian/science fiction novel to allude to/be snarky and or contrarian with, or pay the fine.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Do you sit around and talk to family and friends, speaking perfectly, throwing in massive complex words? No.

Actually, I do.

I frequently have complex discussions with my wife and my friends that include massive complex words. And while I don't speak perfectly at all times, I do strive to avoid slang as a rule, unless I'm tired, angry, frustrated, or otherwise in some state that pushes me to not care about how effective my spoken words are.

Yeah, I don't mean having discussions about metaphysics how a super fluid works. I mean like when your watching NFL and describing the ball being thrown like Joey in friends when he finds the thesaurus function on his laptop.

Nobody says something like "the athlete gave the inflated leather oval ball, gravitational and kinetic energy with enough velocity to make it travel the desired distance where upon the other athlete absorbed the energy, which dissipated around his body as he caught it" do you? You say "that guy launched the thing 90 yards to that skinny dude!".

Like Stephen said, it's about suitability.

I didn't realize that you were going for a reductio ad absurdum angle in your argument.

No, I don't use words like that, but I frequently use words like "characterization" when talking about my favorite books or video games.

I use the word "socialization" all the time when talking about politics or religion.

Maybe it's my choice of hobbies and friends, but I find larger complex words popping up in my vocabulary often enough.

And I don't watch sports, so I wouldn't know what kind of words I would use to respond to exciting moments.

 

[peruvianskys]

People are making the mistake here that a masterful command of the English language is somehow the same as wordiness or pretentiousness. This is an excerpt from a Raymond Carver short story:

Saturday afternoon she drove to the bakery in the shopping center. After looking through a loose-leaf binder with photographs of cakes taped onto the pages, she ordered chocolate, the child's favorite. The cake she chose was decorated with a spaceship and launching pad under a sprinkling of white stars, and a planet made of red frosting at the other end. His name, SCOTTY, would be in green letters beneath the planet. The baker, who was an older man with a thick neck, listened without saying anything when she told him the child would be eight years old next Monday. The baker wore a white apron that looked like a smock. Straps cut under his arms, went around in back and then to the front again, where they were secured under his heavy waist. He wiped his hands on his apron as he listened to her. He kept his eyes down on the photographs and let her talk. He let her take her time. He'd just come to work and he'd be there all night, baking, and he was in no real hurry.

That prose is not verbose or overwrought, but you won't find many people ever with a command of the language like Carver had. English is a language with a huge amount of subtlety and variety and being a "good" writer means knowing when to take a word out as well as put one in. Anyone can say: "That afternoon, the bright sun rising in a plethora of cacophonous auburn rays, phosphorescent in their blah blah blah blah blah" but that's not good writing and you won't find many academic circles where that would be met with anything more than disdain. Most any English professor you'll ever have would hate that with about the same passion as they would the use of "LOL" or "plz." Good writing strikes a balance between overly simple and overly verbose. Text speech fails as good writing because it lacks the capacity for subtlety and flair, both of which are really important in any good piece of writing.

I applaud anyone who stands up for the spirit of language while avoiding petty formalism, especially teachers. Demanding five-syllable words in each sentence to flex your academic vocabulary skills is elitist; demanding that people use language with the capacity for any of the qualities that make writing worthwhile is not.