Torontoist: Casino Crime, Teen Texting Fine, Kid Makes Good Time

tyrannosaurus_rek

Tue, 20 May 2008 15:26:15 -0500

A friend of mine has been teaching English in Korea and Japan for 4 years now, a university grad too, and can't be bothered to differentiate your and you're.

redleaf

Tue, 20 May 2008 14:10:47 -0500

well, it's true, I'd miss reading the banter

PickleToes

Tue, 20 May 2008 13:10:37 -0500

Nah, you adore me.

Ben

Tue, 20 May 2008 12:50:53 -0500

keep trying.

PickleToes

Tue, 20 May 2008 12:44:46 -0500

I was trying to be funny.

mrs

Tue, 20 May 2008 12:41:58 -0500

PickleToes: "american" isnt a race...

PickleToes

Tue, 20 May 2008 11:58:24 -0500

just wish the American influences in spoken English were not taking hold here. Americans don't like adverbs; have difficulties with past participles and have troubles with prepositions. Racist

spacejack

Tue, 20 May 2008 11:55:47 -0500

People write a lot more than they did before internet/texting technologies. I'd bet writing skills in general are much better than when I was in high school (I know a lot of my friends went from writing almost nothing to regularly communicating via email.) You just didn't see as much crap from people with terrible writing skills back then.

Marc Lostracco

Tue, 20 May 2008 11:48:05 -0500

I'm gobsmacked by how many people still don't know the difference between your/you're and there/they're/their. Nobody should be graduating ELEMENTARY SCHOOL without knowing that, let alone university or college.

wardnikoff

Tue, 20 May 2008 11:34:44 -0500

Language is constantly evolving - it always has been. Read up on all the words Bill Shakespear invented. "Proper" english has never really existed. In fact all languages are evolving into one another too, including modern technological words like text message words and the like. Everyone show calm down as usual and remember the great quote from Henery Drummond in Inherit the Wind; "Language is a poor enough means of communication. We've got to use all the words we've got. Besides, there are damn few words anybody understands."

David Topping

Tue, 20 May 2008 11:26:12 -0500

The Ottawa Citizen article (aside from the great opening paragraph) is a little off, but this quotation pretty much nails the whole argument:Katherine Barber, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, said it's no surprise that instant messaging doesn't threaten conventional language. "Many people have this black-and-white view of language, that some things are always right and wrong," she said. "That's not how it works."Different forms of writing have different rules for what is and isn't acceptable. There's a lot that's acceptable in text messaging that isn't in almost any other form—texting language is far more compact and speedy because the form necessitates that. (I try to write text messages the same way I regularly write but, for instance, I rarely use em dashes or semi-colons in them.) Since I was a kid, I've been hearing that my generation (with an assist from technology) was destroying the English language. I wouldn't say it's dying—I'd say it's got some growing pains. The English language is remarkably flexible and picks up and incorporates (or abandons) stuff as it goes along, and while it's important to not be too laid-back about language, I'm not sure that it makes sense to be freaked out about it all the time either. So long as "your" and "you're" don't become interchangeable in my lifetime, and so long as the semi-colon outlives me, I think I'll be okay.

tyrannosaurus_rek

Tue, 20 May 2008 11:25:05 -0500

Mayn't is a word I wish would experience a renaissance. May I? No, you mayn't.

Gloria

Tue, 20 May 2008 10:54:16 -0500

"Shan't!" So delightful. Everyone should know the joy of that.

iamnotdynamite

Tue, 20 May 2008 10:50:46 -0500

actually, after testing myself out loud, i'd say 'yer going to yer car now?' oh god, i'm contributing to the decline of the english language.

tyrannosaurus_rek

Tue, 20 May 2008 10:41:49 -0500

I can't hear 'shall' without thinking of Family Circus comics and how unrealistic the dialogue is. I wouldn't mind if that word died. Teens might be learning new words, but they aren't spelling them right, that's infinately indespudible. And what's with the sudden blurring of pronunciation between you're [yew-r] or [yer] and your [yore]? Yore going to yore car now?

mboadway

Tue, 20 May 2008 10:05:34 -0500

The casino thing certainly is no news. Casinos and many other institutions have to report transactions that exceed a total of $10,000 in one day, not one transaction. The cansino should have been reporting based on that alone. Transactions that appear to be on the inside of the $10,000 limit should also spur the casino to write up Suspicious Trasactions for FINTRAC. For fun reading on this stuff go here: http://www.fintrac.gc.ca/publications/FOR/2007-05-02/1-eng.asp

davedave

Tue, 20 May 2008 08:56:54 -0500

"a linguistic renaissance." Uh, no. Email and text messaging are destroying the English language that was already on life support. Sorry, but LOL, SKR and all the rest of the text garbage are not words. They're lazyass abbreviations. Nobody can spell anymore nor can they string a grammatically correct sentence together. Those 2 linguists are idiots.

David E

Tue, 20 May 2008 08:40:38 -0500

Shall and will are coming back into use in English. There is a renaissance of vocabulary. Amazing! Now, if we can get those airheads on TV and radio to follow suit then we'll be better off. I just wish the American influences in spoken English were not taking hold here. Americans don't like adverbs; have difficulties with past participles and have troubles with prepositions. Don't believe me, just as Russell Smith.