As you know by now, the future of English is currently under threat. Chatspeak and bad grammar have become a national epidemic, and high school students in New Zealand reportedly are allowed to write their term paper in chatspeak from now on. I mean, WTF! Forget complaining about those immigrants who refuse to speak English in this country! We need to first start working with people who were actually born in an English-speaking environment. It's bad enough being American has become synonymous with being monolingual, but some of us can't even write the only language we know appropriately?! WTF! Doesn't that make some of us only semi-monolingual then?
For this reason, I say we now employ a stricter approach where English is concerned. An English class should no longer be the only place where proper grammar and spelling matter. Instead, students need to demonstrate their awesome knowledge of the English language in each and every single class they have. For every grammatical mistake they make (yes, that includes missing hyphens), a teacher should take a point off the total score. For every spelling error they make (yes, that includes the inevitable, er, typoes), a teacher should take a point off the total score. Yes, that means even if you know all the answers to your biology exam but forget all about the periods, you can kiss your A goodbye. Even if you know how to write an excellent essay on Descartes but can't figure out the difference between "its" and "it's," you'll be in trouble.
I can see it now: math will finally be everyone's favorite subject.
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I am a member of a few online forums, one of which is Hardware Analysis where a good majority of the most active members use proper, to mostly proper English when they post a reply. What kills me is when a new guy enters the forum with a problem involving his/her computer, and the post looks something like:
hi my name is dvaid i have a problem with my computer it restarrts alot and i cant seem to get it to fixed lol anybody help me thnx
amd athlon 3000 512mb ram x800
It seems like it's a reflection of the general laziness that seems to be plaguing the nation. Hell, I've been in chats with friends where I ask how they are doing, and they reply: "meh, i'm okay." That's not too big of a deal, until the next line of text they type in is: "u?" They're so lazy, they want to trim a 3-letter reply down to a 1-letter quickie.
~ Evix Keth
I thought that was a given, but we can't do anything with people we know on the net. Schools and teachers, on the other hand, have all the power...
**Save English as a first language, yo.
Yes, I came to this country 13 years ago and I learned everything that I thought Americans knew, I guess I was wrong. Instead, I get asked how to spell things. I tell people where commas and such should go or if to begin a new paragraph. It's sad. It was even more sad when someone who has lived here all their life asked me what the meaning of a word was. I have come to accept it a bit but I still am concerned with this nations communication abilities.
p.s. Yes human trafficking still goes on. It's very real. If you would like you may check it out at www.humantrafficking.com and the movie also, "Human Trafficking" from your library. It's been on lifetime channel before.
It's a shame. Even though you've been speaking English all your life and I haven't, let me spell out this English word for you and tell you what it means.
**Save English as a first language, yo.