The degeneration of language.

Within recent years, I have seen the degeneration of language unfold in even the most professional online environment. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to be greeted by someone who intends to sell you something like this:

This, in my opinion, is saddening.

Now allow me to get something straight - I'm not here to bash those who are not native English speakers. Rather I am here to applaud you, as you have soared above the level my American colleagues would consider above average English. Even with spelling errors galore, I have noticed people who know barely any English are often using better punctuation.

I think the root of the problem is the lack of pride we take in the way we type. We no longer care about our first impression, feeling that the product we sell or the service we offer is all that should represent us. We've turned into a quantity over quality society.

While I could continue to rant, I'd prefer to keep it short and allow you guys to leave some feedback.

 

The root of the problem, has and always will be from mobile text messaging.

 

Oddly enough, texting is what originally inspired me to strive for a higher standard of conventions.

 

It's because people like to simplify things and also many words created on the Internet is now standard in real life.

 

i hAt3 t@ht t0

 

Don't think of it as degeneration, think of it as...evolution.

Since the dawn of the English language, it has been continuously refined and refined and refined to make words shorter. New letters are added..."J" is only 400 years old, if that and some letters are removed.

Replacing various phonetics with numbers (hate->h8 etc), the word becomes quicker to write (especially on a handheld device that everyone uses these days) and thus the language becomes that little more efficient - all languages evolve over a time, and you may as well accept that, in a few generations it may be standard.

 

As long as people can understand whats been said I dont have a problem!

 

It is not evolution, it is degeneration indeed.

It may be justified when used on standard keyboard mobile phones.. But there is no excuse for using it on a full qwerty keyboard..

You are not alone. I bugs me as well when I see someone posting like that.

Not just that, also when anyone says - 'anyways'.
I'm like, what the heck is anyways, anyway?

 

Further examples include using contractions as the secondary word such that 'should have, will have, hopefully have,' have now turned into "Should of","Will of", and "Hopefully of." Some of you may now be thinking what's wrong with those. It's obvious. Should have is shortened to should've, but thinking that they will sound more intelligent by not using a contraction will instead just say 'should of' because 'should've' sounds like should of. Another point is using "they're, their, and there" all wrong. There are many other instances like this too. Words like "anyways" should be "anyway". Alright should be "all right." And my all time favorite, "Irregardless." A word that in itself contains two negatives, yet is used in place of the correct "regardless." Basically you're stating you have regard because regardless is lacking regard and ir in front of a word means the opposite of. The opposite of lacking regard is to have regard for. It's so used that it is now actually listed as an irregular form of the word because of the outcry FOR IT. So ridiculous. There are other times where people put words together (a conjunction) such as "alot," which should be "a lot." Finally, a list of the worst words ever used and serious too: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Worst_100_Nonexistent_Words_of_All_Time

 

I am sympathetic to the sentiments expressed on this thread. I understand both sides of the "evolution" vs. "degradation" debate. I like the position that Marshall McLuhan took. He was an English professor, disturbed by the advent of television and radio, and how it seemed to be transforming the mental environment. And he started out as a critic, pointing out the absurdities of modern life as expressed through marketing messages.

But eventually, he realized that he had no way of stopping the technological changes that he felt were responsible for transforming the Western world from a literate one where comprehension involved linear, sequential logic to a tribal one where information moves so fast that pattern recognition becomes more useful, so he decided that he would try to understand what was going on instead of deriding it. If you're looking to blame a technology, go back to the electric telegraph, where communication was separated from transportation for the first time, and the world started getting wired into a global electric circuit. Natually, McLuhan got dismissed as a crackpot by literate types, because he was telling them that their concerns about the degradation of culture were simply a matter of them bemoaning their own diminishing cultural relevance. And who wants to hear that?

Here's the nice part -- everyone sounding dumber makes people who can actually write sound smarter!

 

Well, obviously someone who greets you with a message like that trying to sell a program knows nothing about Internet Marketing.
He's most likely young and unexperienced as well.

I have noticed it on some places but mostly in places where teenagers hang out.
Such as tumblr and twitter.

I understand if you want to shorten some words to speed up your writing and save space, but
using ""pr0gram" instead of "program" is just a failed way of writing "leet speak".

 

I don't how we've all become slaves to texting that we incorporate text speak in our conversations with other people.

Maybe by the next age, humans will go back to oo-ooh and ah-ahh.