Good grief -- they only needed to ask anyone who has taught English in the last half-dozen years or so. Or any teacher, for that matter, because we all have experienced it. Our kids want to use abbreviations, shorthand, and sentence fragments because that is what they are most comfortable and experienced with writing. That's how they IM and text message!

But now we do have confirmation from "journalists" of what those of us who actually work with students already knew -- which makes it "news" and therefore unquestionably true (because after all, would reporters every lie to you?). How long until we get the over-priced longitudinal study of student writing by researchers with the "proper academic credentials" to "prove" what we already know?

Zoe Bambery, a senior at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, might send more than 100 instant messages -- IMs -- during a typical evening. So during the SAT exam, the 18-year-old found herself inadvertently lapsing into IM-speak, using "b/c" instead of "because" as she scrambled to finish her essay.

She caught herself and now is careful to proofread before hitting print. But she is hardly the only student to find IM phrases creeping into school work.

"They are using it absolutely everywhere," said Sara Goodman, an English teacher at Clarksburg High School in Montgomery County who has worn out many purple and red markers circling the offending phrases in papers and tests.

Wendy Borelli, a seasoned English teacher at Springbrook High in Silver Spring, finds photo captions for the school yearbook sprinkled with shorthand such as "B4" and "nite." A student who left on a brief errand to the office announced he would "BRB."

In 2004, 16 million teenagers used instant messages to communicate, up from 13 million in 2000, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Students say IM language has become so ubiquitous they often do not realize they have lapsed into it.

"It's just natural. I had to learn not to do it" in papers, ChiChi Aniebonam, 17, said about her proficiency in IM. "I'm in AP literature, where you just can't put it into your writing, but when I'm writing something informal, now and again I use it."

And these are the top students -- you can only imagine how much more prevalent these issues are with average students who want to get academic tasks done with as little mental or physical exertion as possible and therefore avoid formal reading and writing whenever possible ("Mr. RWR -- You mean you actually read books for fun? Really?").

Then again, English is a constantly evolving language, as comparisons between books written today and those written before WWII (not to mention in earlier periods) will amply demonstrate. Sentence structure, voice, and vocabulary all have changed again and again -- and so I can only expect it will do so in the future. The question is one of how far we and future generations will allow the informality to progress without calling a halt to what some would call the debasement of the English language.

Posted by: Greg at 07:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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