Demise of the written word

Consider: This new shorthand is not going away. Even banned from what we can call Main Stream Computering (MSC) it is going to slip in. As the younger folks learn this new language in their personal communicating, it will spread to contaminate MSC at probably a phenomenal rate. Without a doubt MSC will become the medium of the future.

This conversion will allow TPTB (LOOK! newspeak!) an an excellent ground for the introduction of a real version of George Orwell's NEWSPEAK as he explains it in his book 1984. His appendix, "The Principles of Newspeak" at the end of the book, is a chilling prophesy--as is the whole book, of course. It should be a MUST read for anyone concerned about how we are being manipulated in a broad stream of normal evolution aspects of our existence to a desired direction.

He takes a passage from the Declaration of Independence that states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...." and demonstrates how eventually we won't be able to adequately understand or explain what it means.

Originally posted by B.Morrison

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

God I love Oz!!

Originally posted by GTasker

I see your bad grammar above. You should never start a sentence with 'and'.
[edit on 10-12-2009 by GTasker]

Actually, that old rule with not using 'and' at the start is considered passe.

It's quite acceptable to use 'and' at the start of a paragraph for example, for literary impact.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
Here's an interesting thought...

...how much of our digitalized information will survive (or be able to be accessed) by archeologist of the future?

I've often pondered the very same thought!

Let's hope stone tablets don't totally go out of fashion as a tried and trusted form of storage medium.

reply to post by AccessDenied


To type, you must know how to write. Anyone who can type can write. Typing was a requirement in schools since early in the last century. The same was said of the typewriter as you are saying about the use of the computer keyboard.

I think this would rank very near the bottom of a list of things to worry about.

The Teachers are the problem. The Parents are the problem. The computer and Internet are just tools like any other; neither good nor bad.

The old argument about typewriters being the end of the written word seem silly now. This argument will seem just as silly in the future.

It is our schools that need fixed. Languages will change, word meanings will change and language in general will evolve as each generation leaves it mark. The quality of those teaching is the real heart of the matter, not the tools used to express ourselves.

Our real concern should be the great damage that Unions have done to the education system by politicizing the classroom to indoctrinate our children. The Teachers have been purchased and are owned by one political ideal that is determined to through brainwashing indoctrinate our children.

One need only see a tape of a classroom of pre-ten year olds chanting "Obama, Obama, Obama" to understand where the problem lies. When schools stopped teaching just the basics and became tools of Political Ideologues while at the same time joining with the organized crime organizations known as unions, the outcome was inevitable.

Turning out a generation of illiterates is a must if they want to control thought and society. The people responsible for what goes in the minds of our children are now one of the most radical elements of our society. We must take back the schools from the Progressives and the Elite before our whole system fails.

Where we started loosing it is clear. There was a time our children were taught and prepared to take advantage of the opportunities our system offered. Now they are taught to good little corporate or governmental employees. The movie Brazil is upon us and it correctly predicts our future if the Progressives succeed. The conversion to the two class system of the Dark Ages is nearly upon us. If only the Teachers knew they were never considered for status as one of the Elite they would not be so willingly led to slaughter with the rest of us.

I welcome change, so let the language change, what's the difference? We can still communicate with one another and can still kill each other, so English language disappearing, won't change anything in actuality!

I'm glad you posted on this subject. I've been discussing at work how people's handwriting has gotten so much worse over the years. I still maintain very readable handwriting, because when I was in school (not in the U.S.) we were graded not only on our spelling and grammar, but also on our handwriting. If you look at my handwriting you would have no trouble deciphering it. However, most of the time I can't read a word of what some of my co-workers write. I have to go ask them to read it to me, because the handwriting is so terrible. Most of the time some letters in a word will only be half-finished or just scribbled without attention to their form.

The scribbles and text messaging has a lot to do with a lack of time or space. I think these days people are in more of a hurry. If they need to say something they need to do it quickly, or do it in a limited amount of space. We have learned to shorten certain words not only to fit them into our phones, but also to do it quickly while we're walking, driving, or talking to someone else in front of us. We are adapting our language to our current lifestyles.

I don't think print will disappear altogether. Like a few have mentioned, it's so much better to just hold a book in your hands and flip through the pages. I hate reading lengthy articles online, because it hurts my eyes. I don't understand how people read books on "Kindle", having to recharge batteries and such. I'll always prefer books printed on paper, especially if they have illustrations.

Our language has been changing for thousands of years. If you go back 100 years you will notice we no longer use certain words, or they have changed meaning. You can't keep a language from changing/evolving. If you pick up a book written in "English" 800 years ago you'll be surprised by how many words you will not understand. Spelling has changed, pronunciation, meaning, maybe even tone. A few years ago I bought the book "Beowulf". It contained the original language and modern English. I couldn't understand a SINGLE word in the original language! Was it supposed to be English? It sort of resembled English, but the words meant something completely different than what I would have thought they might mean.

So, my point is that shortening words into "texts" is just another form of evolution in our language. Not everyone will like it, but most people these days understand that the word "LOL" means "Laugh out Loud", or "l8tr" means Later. I hope that kids can retain the original modern language to the best of their abilities, but I don't think we're going to see these shortened words disappear until we develop technology that allows us to communicate faster using the full words as they were intended.

reply to post by Blaine91555


But if we lose the ability to write, and the computers are all of a sudden rendered useless..what then?

reply to post by AccessDenied


I think that if you can read and recognize letters in a word, then you can also write. Is it even possible to be able to read without knowing how to write? You have to be able to recognize the shapes in order to understand what they are.


[edit on 10-12-2009 by 2manyquestions]

I can agree wholeheartedly about schools being lax on teaching in depth the art of hand writing. My children all have shameful penmanship despite our best efforts to encourage them to improve. All of them know more about the computer then they do about penmanship, to say nothing of their total brain-fart in the spelling department.

On an upside they are good at art, which is really a universal language. For instance, when my wife and I were on our honeymoon we had a stop in Italy. We both needed to find a mens/womens room to use but didn't speak the local language. So I pulled out the pen and note pad and drew a toilet. Eureka! A nice gentleman pointed the way, and the rest is history.

Yippee.....the end of News Corp.

I get what you're trying to say. It reminds me of the book Fahrenheit 451. It's hard for me to describe, but our world is very much becoming like that book. People are rushed, and become mean. Like in the car, they will go to A to B with no delay. Never mind the other people who stop and smell the roses.

It is difficult to asses the current problems with writing and reading without referring to TV. I think it is the single most important reason for the new illiteracy.
In fact, an American intellectual in the late 80's was telling me he thought the Internet was the single reason for the resurrection of any kind of writing at all...

In defense of SMS:
SMS is by far not the same price all over the world as talking on a mobile phone. In the country where I currently live, it can cost as much as 50 cents per minute to talk, whereas it costs only a couple of cents to send an SMS. (Wages are about one fifth to one tenth of US wages so it matters.) Added to this, you have very little EMF radiation while sending an SMS, compared to the cell phone radiation. Plus you do not make people uncomfortable in public transportation etc. by shouting away... (I hate it when I'm phoned down... in terms of voice plus radiation...)

As a linguist, I think the problem is not with our codes. They do evolve. Consumer society has done a great deal to cheapen words though - with propaganda and advertisement.
Luckily, (some) people today are far more aware than others were 30 years ago that news and language can be manipulated.

(Neuro-linguistic programming teaches we manipulate our environment by words and metaphors all the time - however, it is better to become conscious of what you are doing.)

I have two examples on how our language system is getting worse, one is humorous and the other is just annoying. These both are movies; the first movie where I found it a bit annoying was the dialogue (sp?) in "Jennifer's Body" ... yes I went and saw that heh.

The other movie is where we are heading in life. "Idiocracy" is a great example of our language and perhaps our mental capacity in the future if we eventually die down to the easy way out. If you have seen it then you know it is relevant in this conversation. If you haven't, then I suggest seeing it at least once, it is funny a bit anyhow. (depending on your humor)

So many movies that all seem plausible in the future ... and they are beginning to narrow I think. I can see anywhere from Stargate/Star Wars/running man/ total recall /idiocracy/demolition man... etc... Who knows, but some days it just seems this world is taking a certain path.

reply to post by DataWraith


That was the funniest post I've read in a long time! Very suiting, and your timing was impeccable!!!

Bravo!


As far as the original topic...I'm inclined to agree. The written word is QUICKLY becoming a lost art.

Originally posted by Kokatsi
It is difficult to asses the current problems with writing and reading without referring to TV. I think it is the single most important reason for the new illiteracy.
In fact, an American intellectual in the late 80's was telling me he thought the Internet was the single reason for the resurrection of any kind of writing at all...

In defense of SMS:
SMS is by far not the same price all over the world as talking on a mobile phone. In the country where I currently live, it can cost as much as 50 cents per minute to talk, whereas it costs only a couple of cents to send an SMS. (Wages are about one fifth to one tenth of US wages so it matters.) Added to this, you have very little EMF radiation while sending an SMS, compared to the cell phone radiation. Plus you do not make people uncomfortable in public transportation etc. by shouting away... (I hate it when I'm phoned down... in terms of voice plus radiation...)

As a linguist, I think the problem is not with our codes. They do evolve. Consumer society has done a great deal to cheapen words though - with propaganda and advertisement.
Luckily, (some) people today are far more aware than others were 30 years ago that news and language can be manipulated.

(Neuro-linguistic programming teaches we manipulate our environment by words and metaphors all the time - however, it is better to become conscious of what you are doing.)

I completely agree with you about the effects of TV.
As a linguist, thank you for your input. Much appreciated.

I fear some of my message may be misconstrued or not quite understood by some of the posts I'm reading.
My fear is that we may see this-

Book burning (a category of biblioclasm, or book destruction) is the practice of destroying, often ceremoniously, one or more copies of a book or other written material. In modern times, other forms of media, such as phonograph records, video tapes, and CDs have also been ceremoniously burned, torched, or shredded. The practice, usually carried out in public, is generally motivated by moral, religious, or political objections to the material.

Some particular cases of book burning are long and traumatically remembered - because the books destroyed were irreplaceable and their loss constituted a severe damage to cultural heritage, and/or because this instance of book burning has become emblematic of a harsh and oppressive regime. Such were the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, the burning of books and burying of scholars under China's Qin Dynasty, the destruction of Mayan codices by Spanish conquistadors and priests, and in more recent times, Nazi book burnings and the destruction of the Sarajevo National Library.

en.wikipedia.org...

And that would be solely because everything has moved to cyberspace.
Then as the government tightens our freedom of speech on the net..possibly through some very Orwellian tactics...we shall soon see the net disappear.
As was pointed out previously...we have become already so dependent daily on the internet for information...What if it was suddenly gone?
If after years of only using a computer for everything...how long before we forget how to read and write properly? 25 years? 50 years?

I have been bothered by people not typing out whole words and not using any punctuation for many years. Back in the day when alot of people used MSN messenger I once blocked a guy due to his horrible typing, which was so bad that sometimes I had no idea what he was trying to say.
And I remember from years ago someone wrote some rap lyrics on a paper in an English class , and I took it and edited it which was rather funny.

Another concern of mine is that a few weeks ago I read somewhere that they were planning on replacing text books with the internet. I believe that its only a matter of time until we depend on technology for everything.

reply to post by GTasker

You should never start a sentence with 'and'

It's actually acceptable now to start sentences with "and" and other conjunctions.

I have thought about this quite a bit. If there was a terrible disaster, the future humans that survive, and start piecing things back together, will have an easier time if they can find a library somewhere buried in the ruins.

I am a believer that mankind has become more advanced than we are now multiple times. There could be remnants of a very old civilization buried in the Earth that has secrets to technology we don't even know about.

Practically speaking, if things like metalurgy, computer science, and how to convert raw materials into things like tractors and cars, and aircraft are etched into stone all over the place there would be a pretty decent chance that Man could come back from almost any disaster, barring total destruction by comet.
But yeah, we need to preserve information, in hard form, not just electrons.

One afternoon in 2004, I overheard someone saying, "I heart him!" I thought I was going to die. I thought about the danger of the slippery slope. It was the first time I had hear internet-speak actually spoken outloud in a casual conversation and nobody around flinched.

My contribution to book hoarding is well underway.

[edit on 12/10/2009 by Tadarida]

[edit on 12/10/2009 by Tadarida]