No more than oral conversation would ruin the written language skills. No more than e-mail or texting would. You cannot destroy grammar, because it is inborn. You could detroy spelling, but it is not essential, is it?

I believe that researchers should acknowledge the difference in spoken language, which is rarely grammatically correct, and written language. Twitter, texting, and social networking Web sites are generally cataloged by college students as an electronic conversation among their many means of communication. Spoken language is being captured in electronic written formats. While they are written down, that does not mean that researchers can confuse these “conversations” as the communicator’s formal writing structure. You would never accuse an author of having poor language skills based on a casual conversation that you had with the author. In the same way, you can not judge the language skills of college students based on their tweets, texts, and posts to networking Web sites. If college professors suddenly experience an influx of papers that show no understanding of how to properly write Standard English, then I believe that would be cause for worry. Until then, unless we are going to start judging written language skills on verbal communication skills, no thought should be put into the “structure” of electronic conversations, or on their “contribution to the destruction of language skills among college students.” There is not the needed interdependence between the two to allow for that conclusion.

Yes, I believe the he tech devices of today are destroying not only the language skills, but the social skills of our young people today. I have heard stories of young people in the same room that chose to text each other rather than talk. What a shame!

“So here’s the question: Is Twitter – along with instant messaging and texting – contributing to the destruction of language skills among college students?”

OFC

Yes, I do believe that these avenues of communication (among others) are affecting our ability to communicate in formal writing. Proof? I am an educator. You should read some of the language/spelling in papers that I see! And yes, I do believe that spelling is very important.

It’s a 50/50 situation. 50% don’t have spelling skills and the other 50% are just too lazy.

Yes it is. Many recent grads can not communicate very well in a professional atmosphere. The good news is that most don’t have jobs anyway so at this point it doesn’t matter. LOL
Ha!

Twits twitter.
Enough said.

The emphasis on “I” and gerunds in Twitter should be expected since Twitter’s purpose is to express what one is doing. Also, within casual texting/microblogging environments the spelling mutations make sense to conserve space and typing time. But the point is to communicate, so the sender must be careful to know their audience.

Of great concern is how frequently people carry contracted words into other communication formats. People need to be able to write and speak correctly and to be able to discern appropriate “language” for different environments and audiences. In the college environment we’re observing an increasing number of students who don’t know that “u” iand “lol” are not words.

By the way (or should I say, “BTW?”), if you want to know how literate we are in the U.S., view a random sampling of Craigslist ads. It’s amazing!

Ctonrary to puopalr oinpoin, crocert seplilng is otefn uncasrneesy in odrer to dihcepr manenig. Werid!

I don’t believe Twitter, texting, etc., have ruined our students’ ability to spell and write correctly. I believe the destruction begins in elementary school when kids are NOT taught to read words phonetically. My own children are perfect examples. One was taught to read phonetically (in conjunction with the “sight words” concept) and she writes and spells beautifully. Another was taught to read using only sight word concepts. As a teenager, his spelling is atrocious. Learning grammar is a bit like riding a bicycle–even if you don’t ride for a while, when you get back on a bike, the “how to” pretty much comes right back to you.

Who cares?

In an Mother Jones interview with linguist Geoffrey Nunberg, a professor of linguistics at the University of California-Berkeley is asked if Twitter will “dumb-down” our sentences. He answered:

“It’s just silly to imagine that this form of communication could have any effect on language. The English sentence has done very well for itself over the last thousand years or so, and it’s not about to autodestruct because kids have suddenly started to text message each other rather than passing notes under their desk. In fact, what we’re taught in school—the gospel according to Strunk and White—is to be concise. What imposes more constraints of conciseness than Twitter? So in that sense, Twitter could be the greatest thing that’s happened to English since print.”

As long as texting is treated like vocal dialects, I have no objection. Cajun, Cockney, etc. are fine but rarely get transcribed unless the accent is essential to the story. Likewise telegrams – they serve a purpose but we don’t ever see “telegram text” in written stories or formal correspondence.

But when this sort of “abbrev-speak” traverses the chasm into formal writing I think we risk losing a substantial chunk of our discreet and collective cultures, so much of which are recorded as written words (not wrds). Just as learning a second languange enhances the developing brain, so does an understanding of the colorful and deeply descriptive nature of the written word.

SS I think you miss a key point with using text speak for formal communications – sometimes, like it or not, we _have_ to adhere to a minimal level of decorum, and frankly students who cannot adopt such probably have an issue with authority which suggests ther are not the best candidates for a good old fashioned college experience (where the instructor still wields authority) – perhaps they are better suited to informal cloud-based learning, just before they step out to that job at Burger Queen.

Twitter is for children and adults that have yet to mature. It is most definitely affecting the children in grammar school because they will grow up believing that misspelling words into short hand is acceptable and the way things are supposed to be done.

It’s not technology as much as it’s allowing for excuses such as “it’s good enough,” “you know what I mean,” “I’ll have a secretary,” “it’s not important,” or even “it’s the same thing.” The language (oral or written) you use must match the situation in order to be clearly conveyed. I teach math at a community college and all e-interactions with my students must be in formal written English. All verbal communications in my classes are with proper grammar. All written information requires proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization and terminology. All diagramming requires using the proper tools. Anyone who allows less than one’s best from others will get just that…less than one’s best. Now multiply that by the number of times we communicate!

I have worked at a university for the last 32 years and I find it shameful that that most of our students cannot write. I edit, as a favor to some students, thesis and dissertations and find that even those who are doctoral candidates experience difficulty. Many insitutions of higher learning have had to establish remedial programs. At our “writing center,” students mostly go to have their papers revised–it takes too long to try to teach them what they should have already learned!
What are our students learning in elementary schools? Even in high school, few become accomplished writers. We are graduating a whole generation of students who can’t write a coherent letter of application or an office memo. Also, students spend so much time on their computers and never take time to read books. Education is in a sorry state and it appears that we are only here to produce semi-literate employees for corporate america.

Yes, welcome to the destruction of the English Language. This innocent act of using improper English, consequently, is bound to become a bad habit. I’m a grad student who has personally witnessed students using IM, Texting, and Community Website (Twitter, Facebook) jargon in their Gordon Rule college level papers. To add insult to injury, they constantly have to be reminded not to use short-hand words or face academic consequences. I do believe that we shouldn’t base language skills on electronic and verbal casual conversation, but when incidences like this one in where their education is jeopardized then we should pay close attention to how modern technology is affecting language and communication skills overall. These habits are being instilled in out youth and will perpetuate simply out of habit.

This is a very interesting topic and I was flabbergasted at the fact that Matt is correct- it took me only a few extra seconds to read the post that he wrote in what looks like gibberish! I think in a formal paper setting that grammar is indeed important but as some have pointed out this about connection and socializing for this generation. The point about short-hand is also appropriate- I took short-hand and couldn’t write OR read any of this now (except maybe my own name which gets back to that “I” stuff in Twittering).

You can destroy grammar. Although the ability to speak grammatical sentences is probably genetic, the grammar sppken is entirely learned. In English the subject usually occurs first in a sentence, but in Welsh the first word is typically a verb (you can put the subject first but a special form of the verb to be is needed). So word order is not genetic. In English the spelling of a word is not affected by its grammatical context, but in Welsh it is (my dog, your dog, her dog, and our dog are fy nghi, dy gi, ei chi, and ni ci). So spelling is not genetic. In English pronouns do not decline, but in Welsh they do (on John, on me on you, on her are ar John, arna i, arnat ti, arni hi). So declention is not genetic. And, arna i is spelled correctly, so capitalization is not genetic either. This only scratches the grammatical differences between English and Welsh, but my point should be made.

Students who cannot spell have reading difficulties. The fact that already skilled readers can decode scrambled words quickly says nothing about the problems of poor readers.

Nevertheless, the problem is not with Twitter. The problem is with students not being taught when and how to use standard English.

Matt,
What you wrote is very intriguing, but the point here is not whether or not we can understand the message or not. I believe it is how we present ourselves. I am afraid that we are completely losing respect, professionalism, and decorum as a society. I understood everything you wrote, but if you had sent me a letter or email written that way, I would either question your intellect, your opinion of the institution I represent, or your respect of me. I have difficulty with spelling so I am diligent in proofing what I write. I also hope that my spoken communication is grammatically correct; I just do not have to worry about the spelling when I am speaking.

Absolutely. I saw it in the grad course I taught recently. Students used poor grammar, spelling and punctuation even in formal papers being turned in for a graduate library course. Not only do these things make you look uneducated, but they also make it harder for other people to read, as they have to take time to translate what you WROTE into what you MEANT. Poor grammar and spelling is also a significant barrier to communication at the most basic level. I don’t really want those reading what I write to be trying to second-guess what I meant to say — I want it to be utterly clear.

As an employer, incorrect grammar and spelling in a cover letter or resume are an automatic disqualification, as they show a lack of attention to detail, general sloppiness and lack of professionalism. If a person is seeking a job and can’t be bothered to proof his or her cover letter, then that shows lack of respect for the recipient and a lack of seriousness about wanting to work at Ithaca College.

I absolutely do not agree that “quick spelling” indicates a flexible mind and the person would do well in the workforce. It indicate sloppiness, impatience and lack of concern for clear communication — and good communication skills are vital for almost every job. I would not want to hire such a person.

In my opinion, Twitter is better than listening to most college student’s grammar. They don’t type the word “like” every third or fourth word.

Twitter and texting represent the latest incarnation of “Vulgate English” or “written slang”. I do not “Tweet”, and I text infrequently. There’s always been a crossover regarding how we speak versus what we write … rarely does the spoken word achieve the same linquistic clarity as something written (and edited). As long as students are aware that there’s a difference between professional communication and the informal, casual passing of information, I don’t see an issue … at the very least, it should provide English instructors with some long-term job security …

Maybe the “hidden problem” is with people analyzing Twitter and not the people using it.

Linguistics prof. George Nunnberg says Twitter “may be the could be the greatest thing that’s happened to English since print” because it demands “conciseness.” But have a look at the Oxford report again: the second most-used word in tweets is the most unnecessary in Twitter messages; who else would be sending the message but “I”? College papers are full it, too. “I am of the opinon that…,” “I believe that…” Huh! No kidding [or -- WTF?]. I thought your dog was writing the paper.

Well, SS, here’s the deal. In the real world, judgments are often made about us before we are even seen or talked to. I have worked with admissions at my university before and poor grammar and syntax in admissions essays can say alot about your level of professionalism and gives us insight on your ability to convey a message. Not fair? Maybe not. But, it’s true. How quickly do you think that person would get hired if they applied for a job that way? Twitter, text and instant message on your own time, but know when to turn it off and get professional.

Yes, Twitter, instant messaging, and texting ARE contributing to the destruction of language skills among college students. It is that simple.

This is a difficult time for university presses. I am pleased that OUP still makes contributions to the store of human knowledge.

I have often replied to twitters and text messages with “?, Please resend your message with clear english spellings, so I may understand.”. We do not have to accept these messages in such abreviated formats just because they are initially sent that way. We also have the right to ask others to address us in what we feel is a more conducive manner for the matter at hand. It is our fault if we degrade the value of our communications by inappropriately accepting a format of expression from a venue of social networking that has no desire to adhere to those values. Trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Just beacuse these are all digital forms of communication that can converge and be combined -should they be? The rush to harness the latest focusing opportunities in students lives often lends the new connectivity to stretch the depth and discipline of our basic communication structures, yet the fundamentals remain. Communication is occuring – it is our job to set the bar sufficiently high enough, with due dilagence and flexibility to maintain its value as evolution occurs

It’s funny that old people get all nostalgic about the good old days when everyone spoke and wrote perfect english, men opened doors for women, and families went to church twice on sundays. The same ppl that are spelling words wrong on twitter were spelling words wrong before twitter. I’ve been to a real library or 2. I’m done. Thank you, Mr. Belvedere.

With trillions of SMS communications last year and the emerging technologies of Twitter, I fail to see any point in discussing this issue. This is merely another form of expression in the evolution of our language and poses no more threat to modern language than the prose of the 16th century. Every generation fears change from the standards to which they are accustomed. The future generations will surely debate the extinction of all written languages in favor of voice messages, which may require the old posture of thinking before we speak. Who knows, at some point oral may become obsolete to reading thoughts. In any case, our attention might be better focused on effective use since education merely reflects society rather than defines it. Ultimately, we can no more control the use of language than the words created to define it.

For a current article about use of mLearning technologies in the classroom, Google: Pockets of Potential.

I don’t even use twitter and I think this article is a waste of time. My true thought is, “Who cares?” Let’s use some common sense. You’re usually tweeting about something YOU did (hence the use of I’s). You only have a 140 character length, hence you shorten works. So what? I must shorten stuff when I text all the time. Big whoop.

Karin – excellent points in your post. People, in general, have become sloppy in their grammar, spelling and speech. I’m not a teacher but work for a large midwest university. I can’t begin to tell you how often I hear such statements as: “We was all going to the movie” and it drives me crazy! They should have learned to say this properly in grammar school, “I was” and “we were”. And how many people don’t know their “there’s”, “theirs” and “they’re” or “your” and “you’re”. In my office and in others I’ve worked for, when you submit a cover letter with your resume, be SURE you’ve checked and rechecked it before submitting it. YOU may not think it makes a difference but WE do and we’re the ones who decide whether or not you’ll be called for an interview. Any letters with obvious grammar or spelling errors are set aside and may or may not be acted upon. Your spelling and grammar will be vitally important when you’re out looking for a good job because it shows a number of characteristics about you: accuracy, editing ability, responsibility (you took the time to check your work before sending the final draft), and even your intelligence is on the line (i.e., we wonder if you really don’t know the correct spelling or were you just careless in checking your work?).

Last but not least, please, please, PLEASE do NOT text while you’re driving! No matter how good of a driver you THINK you are, there’s no excuse this insanity. Unfortunately, I’m seeing this happening more and more often all the time. Technology can be a great tool – but only if used responsibily.

Change is Inevitable, In order to evolve ,We must be able to teach as well as adapt, Like the quote says”The more things change , the more they stay the same”. For example: In the 60′s the word “MAN” was like a period after every sentence and we are in the year 2009 and you wouldn’t believe that over 100 million people still say “MAN” after a sentence. In the 70′s the African-American Culture made up a lot of words in their own Culture that became known as Slang or S-lang ( short for Street Language) hence the word SLang. Slang was the term that it was called when African-Americans spoke their own created language of American Culture in the Ghettos and Projects in the 70′s and 80′s and it’s so funny How in the 90′s they termed this same language Ebonics (Ebony meaning black and nics short for phonetics). This word Ebonics was created to seperate African -American Slang from other Cultural slang. The African-American culture has been more disected than a frog in a science class. I love the change of Language whether it be from the urban areas or the suburban areas, It represents the Generations and when you look back at history there is a story to tell and we should all appreciate that this takes place because if it didn’t ,imagine How boring this world would be, kind of like a Dictatorship… which the world is not to far from, but that’s a whole other story.

Sasha, grammar is not “inborn.” Grammar is learned orally by a young age, and the grammatical structure of any language can deteriorate in the mouths of the uneducated. Also, spelling is not essential?! WHAT!? I teach English in a university and a community college. You bet e-mail, IM Chat, text messaging, and now twitter are all contributing to a decline in the writing, and hence communication skills, of America’s witless young. And some of the witless older people as well. Thank god for the MLA who preserve the grammatical and spelling integrity of the English language.

Chuck West makes an excellent point — the critical point is that we are seeing a decline in the ability to communicate. If the person reading what you wrote can’t be sure what you meant, or misunderstands what you wrote because you were sloppy and used the wrong words, incorrect spelling or cryptic abbreviations, then you have FAILED to communicate.

If you were a person of importance, like the President of a country, or head of a large corporation, being misunderstood could lead to a major disaster. On an ordinary person level, you can still cause much trouble and grief in your life and the lives of others if you don’t communicate clearly.

It isn’t a matter of being “old,” hung-up or living in the past. It’s a matter of caring about being clear in your meaning.

I think the sloppy writing goes hand-in-hand with sloppy thinking. I can’t tell you how many people have attention spans no greater than a gnat’s. If you haven’t the patience to read a complex essay, think about it and understand the ramifications — you can’t really understand our complex world. How can you make informed decisions when you vote, for example, if you don’t understand the issues with any more depth than a sound-byte (or some people write sound-bite)?

We have been conditioned to have no ability to defer gratification — we are trained to need instant gratification, to have no patience, no focus, no discipline for concentration and deep thinking. It’s scary to think of the fate of the world in the hands of people who cannot and/or will not take the time to think things through and to communicate clearly.

Karin, thank you, and you extend my point about clear communication in a very strong and coherent way. YES, sloppy writing IS a symptom of sloppy thinking. But, in 2000 this country elected a man to the presidential office who was a sloppy thinker, a sloppy communicator, who could not use logic, and who made poor decisions, which to me is a symptom of the way the majority of the voting public at that time conducted their own thinking, writing, and logical conclusions (or illogical). I also teach a bevy of students who write the way they talk and don’t see the need to discriminate between formal and informal or semi-formal communication. Hopefully, they’ll learn this in the workplace. But judging from the communication skills of several young employees I have encountered recently, it appears they may not.

As for Linwood’s comment that “Many who hold most tightly to proper English grammar do so because they have nothing of substance to hold or communicate,” GIVE ME A BREAK! Someone has to gaurd the integrity of malleable systems from the thoughtless mangling of the ignorant masses. I agree that English is flexible, adaptable, and a wonderfully sentient language. Let’s don’t sit back and watch it go entirely to hell. There IS a historical reason to spell “through” rather than “thru”!!

As you read through these comments, do you find yourself evaluating the message based on the manner in which it is presented? A number of comments touch on this, but it may be worth repeating. Getting your message across effectively depends a lot on your audience’s opinion of YOU. The fact that “Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy” is readable, regardless of the spelling jumble, misses the point. By the time you have read three or four words of such a post, you probably have already decided “this guy’s an idiot!” and you cease to care about the content of the message; you have written off the sender and their opinion.

You probably quickly arrive at a decision on the worthiness of a writer’s point of view based on how thoroughly they butcher their spelling, word choices and grammar. If you have come this far in this current long list of comments, you undoubtedly have weighed many on the usage scale and found their opinions, and possibly their writers, lightweight. Maybe in a Twitter environment, wherein the informal “all about me” between friends condones shortcuts, it is acceptable. Just about everywhere else where the written word is used to educate, inform, motivate or persuade, successful communication requires a higher standard. The educator who understands this will provide an invaluable service to students.

The casualty isn’t writing skill, but intellectual focus. Twitter is just the latest invitation to fragment one’s attention to the extent that careful thought becomes physiologically impossible.

OMG LOL texting is destroying English? #fail

No, read it and I understood. You don’t appear to be able to read. The random politics ruined your argument, not helped it.

Walter, don’t kid yourself. EVERYTHING is political, especially language and how it is used. However, if you choose to see the inclusion of a politician as an example as a political statement, then you are in large company. I won’t say good company, but certainly large company. Still, I should hark to the first rule of communication, which brings us back to the debate at hand: It’s not the intended message that is the message; it is the received message that is the message. It doesn’t matter what I intended; all that matters is how you misunderstood it.

If you read my earlier post you’ll see that we appear to be agreeing. It wasn’t the inclusion of a politician, it was the inclusion of your personal opinions about that politician, stated as if they were facts, that made it political and which were out of place. If the kids we were talking about had been old enough to vote for GWB, even that would have made more sense, but 2000? – that’s almost a decade ago. When I reread your post by omitting that rambling, run-on, wholly political sentence it made a stronger statement. Including it was a major distraction to me, (that should be obvious by now) because I see bundled arguments like that all too often, and I have yet to see it do anything but weaken all of the individual statements. You’d have gotten the same reaction if you’d mentioned Bush Sr, Clinton (either one), or Obama in that context.

I’m glad you got my point – just like the kids who insist on using Valley-speak, or text-speak, or profanity when it isn’t appropriate, I was distracted by your inclusion of politics in a discussion which had, until then, been delightfully party neutral and politics free.

“Ctonrary to puopalr oinpoin, crocert seplilng is otefn uncasrneesy in odrer to dihcepr manenig. Werid!” And if the only purpose of language were to be a “meaning container,” this would be a valid point. But besides the aesthetics of a well-constructed sentence, there is a rhetorical function to language that is, at times, quite apart from its literal meaning. In most contexts, if you were to submit a sentence like the one above, your intelligence or sanity would be called into question. Any wrench will turn a bolt, but there’s a continuum of quality in wrenches, which is why people who turn lots of bolts invest in better ones. Feel free to extend that metaphor.

To the Walter/Chuck debacle, I’d say that trying to create politics-free discussions (or even believing that such things are truly possible) is a particular political position. I think that Chuck’s mention of the former president’s lack of linguistic skill–if it was that, and not simply a clever rhetorical move–is relevant, if only tangentially, to the topic under discussion. But, as I read it, I knew he would probably catch flack for it. And, when you’re trying to convince other people of your point, handing them ammunition to fire back at you isn’t often a wise rhetorical maneuver. In short, there’s some truth to what each of them has put forth. And I’ll back away from that now, lest I draw some fire myself.

Yes, Twitterease, is a mutilation of the English language. Isn’t it enough that the “British and the Americans are separated by a common language” (W. Churchill)? I wonder whether we should starrt calling the Twitters, the nation of TWITS or may be partial wit? When would you guys apply for UN membership??

Bingo, Gene — the fragmentation of attention is a key issue. Because we are immersed in an environment full of distractions and marketing ploys to grab our attention and pull it in all directions at once, we lose the ability to focus deeply on anything. Instead, our minds flit from one thing to the next like a butterfly across the blooms, all surface, no depth.

At the same time, we live in an incredibly complex world which requires seriously deep investigation and thought to understand even a portion of it, while our attention spans for comprehension are being atrophied from without.

Twitter is just one of many outward signs of this internal disintegration. Like any tool, it has potentially positive uses. But overall, it is another venue for people to condition themselves to shortening their attention spans even faster.

Too bad these comments weren’t all 140 characters, then I’d have time to read everyone’s argument.

It is sad to read so many comments with grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors. Unfortunately, casual language is used too often when students write formal papers. This is a nightmare for those of us who have to read and grade these papers!

In response to Sasha Sidorkin–

You don’t think a social life composed of 15-word utterances is deleterious to the arts of oral communication? Do you hold conversations in which everything you say can be said in 15 words or less? Do you write e-mail like that to your friends? I can hardly believe it, but if it’s really true I can only imagine that you are a dramatically visual person who communicates mainly through body language and enjoys the stimulation of painting, silent film, and/or instrumental music. Because no one could enjoy a conversation chopped into 15 word sections. Try writing one as a creative writing assignment! Than look at your response here again.

We all know what NCLB stands for, don’t we?

I wasn’t trying to be cryptic or rude; I was just trying to avoid launching into a tirade about how the current educational system is more and more removing any emphasis on developing children’s analytic and reasoning skills in favor of memorization and recitation. NCLB stands for No Child Left Behind. The lack of free thinking and reasoning skills is showing up more and more to the point that one can see it in students at the college level.

People who “twitter” are twits, isn’t that obvious?

For all those who are are commenting against these technologies, why are you using them to comment on how much you hate ithem?