Demise of the written word

With more becoming available online one has to wonder about the future of publishing as a whole.
I have noticed this trend in bits and pieces, but had a real light bulb moment this morning.
The increasing use of text speak is losing us our language. Cursive writing is no longer being taught in school with the increased use of computers.
Everything that was in print is now being either transferred to the net, or placed directly on the net and not even going to print.
Combine that..with the tightening grip TPTB are trying to place on our internet..and what you have is a scenario that in a lifetime could place us back to the dark ages.
If we have our printed word taken away..and lose our ability to write, then we have those in control take away the internet that will eventually hold all our knowledge...
WE HAVE A SCARY SCENARIO.
Should we start hoarding books now to save them ???
I realize this may seem a drastic thought...but it has happened in the past, over and over again..and the past is the best predictor of the future.
TPTB love to keep us ignorant and in the dark..what better way than to work towards cutting off all knowledge to us altogether.

LOL, WTF r u tawkin abut?

peeple ritings fine on me comupter, nd I txt all teh tim.

Frenz luv my speelin..Dey fink I'm gr8 nd smart, lik was is name?, da guy inda weelchare, dawkings? lawkings? u no da guy, tawks lik a robut.



[edit on 10/12/09 by DataWraith]

Originally posted by DataWraith
LOL, WTF r u tawkin abut?

peeple ritings fine on me comupter, nd I txt all teh tim.

Frenz luv my speelin..Dey fink I'm gr8 nd smart, lik was is name?, da guy inda weelchare, dawkings? lawkings? u no da guy, tawks lik a robut.



[edit on 10/12/09 by DataWraith]

Your honor..the defense rests.

Thanks for the humorous response..I get it. But you do see where Iam going with my OP correct? Not just the advance of text speak by a long shot...

EDIT - Cause Data..your siggy says it all.

[edit on 10-12-2009 by AccessDenied]

Originally posted by DataWraith
LOL, WTF r u tawkin abut?

peeple ritings fine on me comupter, nd I txt all teh tim.

Frenz luv my speelin..Dey fink I'm gr8 nd smart, lik was is name?, da guy inda weelchare, dawkings? lawkings? u no da guy, tawks lik a robut.

Hahahaha, comic gold. I'm glad I clicked on this thread.

reply to post by AccessDenied


You are absolutely correct. It is a possible scenario. One big electro-magnetic pulse bomb and the whole place is thrown back into the dark ages.

reply to post by AccessDenied


I understand what your saying. I think though that publishing will never completely die out. The reason being that there are people that prefer to have books. I am one of those. I can't stand reading books on computers. It's maddening to me! There is nothing like actually holding a book (and being able to make notations in it if needed).

I do share your concern about writing ability though. I hate "TXTspeak". It dumbs people down, in my opinion. It drives me up the wall when I and reading my brothers Facebook status and it says, "Going 2 the mall 2day 4 sum fun, b back l8er". The reason it upsets me is because, he doesn't write like that only on Facebook but in real life too. I've seen others that are the same. When I was in high school, I used "l33t" speak a lot on the 'net. So much so, that I realized that I didn't really remember proper grammar and the such anymore. That scared me, so from that point onward, I've strived to use "proper" English on the Internet whenever I can.

Could this be a plan by TPTB in order to control people? Perhaps. I mean, it is much, much easier to control a populace that isn't able to easily read and comprehend what your doing. They'll just ignore it because it's too difficult to read.

ETA: I don't think cursive not being taught is a big deal. I learned cursive when I was in third grade and never really used it after that, even though I can write and read it. Not learning cursive is probably a better thing because some people's cursive is impossible to decipher. Like mine!

[edit on 12/10/2009 by octotom]

I am more worried about the youth reading less then how they write. if schools taught proper language skills and good reading habits text talk would not even be a problem

bollocks, I just posted a thread about the Zuni indians, they're an illiterate culture and as a direct result, they remember things for longer & feel personally attatched to past events...they've had one murder in 300 years, still ashamed of it, still don't know why it happened, quite frankly, they ARE better people than 'modern' man, and they can't read or write.

-B.M

[edit on 10/12/09 by B.Morrison]

reply to post by B.Morrison


Being serous for a moment, after my previous post it will be hard to digest, Even though we argue about our intelligence, our technology and all of our 'achievements' two things that I envy the 'lesser' developed peoples for is their wisdom and spirituality.

We have fast cars, money, food readily available, but take those 3 examples.

Cars - we drive without ANY consideration to other road users, we are stuck in our boxes and that box is OUR world, NO ONE is ALLOWED to interferre with our passage from A to B.
Money - We crave money, work night and day to get some printed fabric, we kill each other over it, fight over it, told we must have it to be appreciated by others to be popular.
Food - reaily available , but sometimes poisoned by toxins, makes us lethargic, craving more, makes us unhealthily fat. so much choice and only so much time to consume it all. We throw away upto a third of what we buy.

Now take your 'lesser' developed cousins or for example the Indians described above, 1 death in 300 years and still ashamed of it, we can't go 300 seconds without hearing that someone died from mugging, a robbery, a war or an addiction of some sort ( ok maybe not 300 seconds but at least 3-4 times a day?).

We have increased our knowledge of the universe, of our world, our oceans , even the lifeforms on it , even our bodies, but we have not learned about our souls. We want to fill that emptiness with material goods, things we cannot take with us when we die.

We have lost so much due to industrialisation, modern technology has made us lazy ', telling people " that was funny" now equates to LOL.
A surprising , startling question ? WTF?
I will meet up with you at a later time , c u l8r.

With laziness comes lethargy, and lethargy means finding another way to cut corners. Sooner rather than later we , I mean our children will be text speaking instead of having conversations, they will be bamboozed by books .Totally untterly confused by written words all because of technology, Don't get me wrong I love technology, but when it's used to create a lazy society , that will eventually turn into dullards I wish for an EMP to send us back to the stoneage...

Rant over, back to being mental ,

reply to post by DataWraith


I totally here what your saying! But I don't think it will go as far as teachers not teaching the proper english language the way people in an older generation were tought.

But I guess the thing you have to remember is that language evolves too!

I mean we came from grunting cave men...

Originally posted by DataWraith
reply to post by B.Morrison

alright, maybe not quite bollocks, that was a bit much, I just think that if we did lose our literacy, it wouldn't necessarily be the "be all & end all" of things.

I hear ya, I agree with ya. I think as long as there's books to read, things will be ok, although you just have to look at the dictionary revisions in "1984" to see the OP author's point of view....

try this mashed potato...its ++good (double plus).

to quote from my thread -

"the patrist culture of the united states as a whole I think we have one murder every 7 minutes if I remember the statistics correctly, and I think we have one rape every 3 minutes. And of course, we have plenty of genital mutilation, although its only practised on women by people of Arabian decent it's practised on the whole male population by doctors who assure us the procedure is scientifically necessary...

no scientific justification for circumcision has ever been published that made any sense whatsoever.

but the thing that Mayo (?) addresses, is that the doctors HEAR the babies SCREAMING in agony... but it doesn't register on them...why?

because they have patrist armoured values, they've shut down their own emotions so they can't recognise anyone else's emotions, an infant screaming is just one of the side effects of 'normal' procedure, just like slapping them on the backside right after their born...

Isn't that a great way to enter to human race!?" (transcribed from a talk robert anton wilson gave at the disinformation seminars)

P.L.U.R.I
-B.M

P.S) I owe my vocabulary to the vast number of books i read as a child, and that my mother sparked my interest in books at a very early age.

P.P.S) i just realised i'm guilty of the topic at hand myself, 'ya' abbreviation of 'you'......roflmao...

[edit on 10/12/09 by B.Morrison]

[edit on 10/12/09 by B.Morrison]

Interesting thread, S+F...

Good point on the Zuni Indians, there are other cultures that rely on a verbal history and (my perspective) these cultures seem a little more serene than our Western culture.

I think reading and literacy is dying out, some people that I work with have terrible literacy skills, but then for a lot of people of my generation education was never seen as something to aspire to - if I hearken back to my school days the "cool" kids were never the ones that worked hard or took an interest in education, especially not learning for the sake of learning. It's easy to see a growth in this kind of culture in more recent times with society's emphasis on a culture of acquisition and material possession.

A point I may raise, which may not be valid, this is just my gut feeling...

Is there a ghettoisation of education? Well, seemingly yes, there is, it's easy to determine areas in which you would want to send your children to school - for them to have the best chance, but further to this in the areas where there is less chance of a good education, those chances seemingly diminish into the future, where a climate of no value on education perpetuates its demise.

I for one love to read, I sit on the bus on my way to work reading and on a bus of maybe 30 people there's maybe one or two others that do so for a 40 minute journey - blows my mind.

There's a definite distinction for me between screen and page reading, page is much more pleasurable for me and there's a distinction (mostly) between that and educational/work reading.

On the flipside, the web has given me massive opportunity for creative writing that I wouldn't have otherwise, this site here I joined to give me an outlet to write and to hone my skills of discourse and language, so it does cut both ways - the tools are there if we chose to use them.

With regard of text speak, I'd hope to think that it came out of a desire to write more in a limited space - especially in the early generations of mobile communication. On some sites there is even a (small) art to this, where words take on other meanings by their "corruption", LOL being short for Laugh Out Loud gets corrupted to Lulz, which has its own meaning in itself, more of a laugh at something done with ill-intention or ends.

Language is an exciting and living thing, although I for one am #-scared of the change and the seeming decline in standards. Currently I'm working a temp job in retail with a lot of young guys, they use a lot of street slang that I barely understand, but I'm picking it up and just use it for laughs, they chuckle at the old guy using "their words" and mostly I do it wrong for the lulz as it keeps us amused in a terribly mundane work environment - BUT the etymology behind it is very interesting, here's a few examples (from the UK).

Bare = Lots/very/many
Guns = Muscles
Food/hard food = drugs/hard drugs
Nang = Horrible/ugly/bad

The blame could be thrown in many places in society, such as media, education..and poor parenting for the lack of literacy.
What worries me is that we are moving away from it without really noticing it.
We see everything moving towards the net in a huge wave and worry that when we finally realize what is happening it will be too late to reverse the damage done.
Does anyone really see that in 20 years time we will still have libraries full of books..or computers with Ebooks?
That is what I mean.
The more that is placed in cyberspace..the less we have in print, as it will be slowly eliminated. Right now everyone is deeming this the future and a positive thing..not worried about the consequences later.
What will happen to all those books when Libraries close? They will be thrown away..shredded, destroyed.

Originally posted by jokei
Good point on the Zuni Indians, there are other cultures that rely on a verbal history and (my perspective) these cultures seem a little more serene than our Western culture.

Thank you & agreed, however i was surprised by the initial discovery of literate versus illiterate.

I think reading and literacy is dying out, some people that I work with have terrible literacy skills, but then for a lot of people of my generation education was never seen as something to aspire to - if I hearken back to my school days the "cool" kids were never the ones that worked hard or took an interest in education, especially not learning for the sake of learning.

I have a qualm with this, but you indirectly make my point for me,
those that take pleasure in finding things out, generally know how to self teach, generally learn more & know how to study. School however teaches none of this & if it does, its not present in the public schools I attended, the schools I taught were nothing more than a development on the old card game called 'memory'; albiet a complex one. Basically, you get your documentation on the topic or take notes, then you sit your test and

as long as you can succesfully regurgitate the 'words' then you pass regardless of whether you truely understand the concept/topic at hand.

And my personal experience is that not only did the majority NOT understand what they are being 'taught' (using the term loosely) but the teachers actually discouraged students from asking questions and showed annoyance when the student persisted for more info & a deeper understanding of the material.

Bare = Lots/very/many
Guns = Muscles
Food/hard food = drugs/hard drugs
Nang = Horrible/ugly/bad

Colloquial Australian slang....'mate' australia is the only place (i know of) where that word is used both affectionately AND as a threat!

budgie smugglers = jocks not boxer shorts, swim jock not swim trunks.

sanga = sandwich

If I think of any more i'll let ya know

-B.M

[edit on 10/12/09 by B.Morrison]

reply to post by AccessDenied


Well, I'll be in the queue for the library clearance sale.

It does worry me a great deal and whilst it may sound a little fringey, linking back to my comment on the ghettoisation of education - it does seem entirely feasible that a purposeful class divide in education is taking place.

Will we make a return to Victorian times, when education was only available for the rich? Is this an overarching theme running concurrent with other conspiracy theories - globalisation, economic collapse etc. Not only will the proletariat be condemned to a servile class, but also denied the means to become anything other than that.

This reminds me of a good book written by George Orwell.

Originally posted by AccessDenied
Does anyone really see that in 20 years time we will still have libraries full of books..or computers with Ebooks?

What will happen to all those books when Libraries close? They will be thrown away..shredded, destroyed.

about ebooks, If it weren't for ebooks, I wouldn't have accumulated my current ebook library of over 3210 books, and I guarantee you from my own personal experience of practically living in libraries in my childhood, that NONE of the books i have today would be allowed in a public library.

It was only finding some very rare & out of print books...number 8 of 80 kind of thing...in ebook format, that reignited my passion for reading.

The problem i have is ink+time. It would take hundreds of hours & thousands of dollars to print and bind all those books. And I would ruin my eyes trying to read it of a screen flashing 60 times a second. whats my solution? DIY projector, google it, save yourself about 1500 & read the pages off your wall, projected at supersize for ease of reading

technology can be beneficial to this cause as much as a detriment.

Also even if the libraries contents were burnt, i still have the printer, ink & ebooks.

-B.M

[edit on 10/12/09 by B.Morrison]

There is nothing worse then trying to talk to someone you respect in real life only to find 'tht thy tlk lyk thz' I really can't understand it! It honestly would have to take up more time working out how to spell like that, to actually type it as it should be! Plus the word LOL has to be up there with the most annoying word of all time - but more so when you have the people that actually now say 'lol' instead of actually laughing!! how hard is it to squeeze out a couple of 'ha ha's'? lyk srsly? ;p

My sad moment was the other day, on DeviantArt, I was talking to someone and they had never heard of a 'pen licence' don't you all rememember when you made that leap from the scribbling to cursive and were presented that certificate! Oh what a happy day! (that was probably the last award i actually received)

[edit on 10-12-2009 by bkaust]

[edit on 10-12-2009 by bkaust]

reply to post by B.Morrison


I also went to a school that was consume/spew with regards to knowledge, but I think that is the general nature of schooling, although I was lucky enough to go to schools with (mostly) great teachers, who were more often than not inclined to indulge students interests.

In the UK, the schooling system is entirely focused on results/funding, our system on the whole seems to be in a tail spin. If I had children there are a few good schools that I'd send them to, but!!! I think the onus would be on myself and my partner to divulge that thirst for learning, I think it should come from the system itself as well, but it tends not to.

All of my learning as an adult has been self guided along many fronts, because I have been curious and/or needed to learn things due to economic constraints. I'm not saying there is no value to ebooks, I just appreciate the tactile feel of a real book, I'm prone to wandering around 2nd hand bookstores when I have the cash/opportunity and have come across some things that are truly awesome. I once picked up a copy of The Divine Comedy from 1865 (I think), sadly I gave it away as a gift... but it was a beautiful book, truly beautiful. I'm very grateful to the internet and have downloaded some stuff that is part of my psych/survival kit - just incase, things that I can't realistically buy.

Ideally we'd have a marriage of the two, but at the moment the economic climate is destroying the book market, it seems to be a luxury a lot can't afford.

www.thebookseller.com...

Waterstones the UKs largest high street book retailer is in dire financial straights and HMV has internally been murmuring about selling them off for a long time, last xmas they shed a lot of jobs and it seems they're only surviving by the skin of their teeth. Also due to my personal feelings I won't buy from them because of their hideous corporate mentality and treatment of their staff, especially not when I can buy books from Amazon for less than the cost of postage.

I have often wondered about this... Every time I have a question about some piece of data, I am off to the computer to look it up on the Internet. The spelling, meaning, usage, history of a word, phrase or idea can be found "here".

The problem is that we have become totally dependent on it for our information. What if it were taken away? How would I find out the meaning of a word? Or the history of another country? I mean, I have a dictionary here, but I don't have the means to find out the correct grammar of "whom" or the history of the Czech Republic.

I don't think we should start hoarding books, but I believe it is wise to realize the dependency we have on the Internet as our information resource. Because in these uncertain times, it could just disappear.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic

I believe it is wise to realize the dependency we have on the Internet as our information resource. Because in these uncertain times, it could just disappear.

And that my dear, is my point exactly.
One day..and "POOF"..gone.