Text Speak Horror
By tony leather, 19th Apr 2012 | Follow this author
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A human resources manager was utterly astounded to see that the applicant had completed their task entirely in text speak, obviously unfamiliar with, or unable to phrase things in the English language.
Text Speak Horror
Please forgive the obvious mistake that is the title of this short rant, but I honestly despair these days, when I see what the educational system in the country is spewing out as finished students. My wife came home from work the other day, and related the tale to me of an application form she had seen, for a vacant position at her office.
This application had been submitted by a university graduate, but both she and the human resources manager were utterly astounded to see that the applicant had completed their task entirely in text speak, obviously unfamiliar with, or unable to phrase things in the English language.
The two women were a bit taken aback, but apparently the candidate was perfectly serious about the application, and saw nothing amiss with using, in written form, the language in which they tended to communicate most often. This was not, as my wife told me, by any means an isolated incident, the usage of this new form od abridged language becoming more widespread all the time.
It is indeed a serious problem, when more than ten years of full-time education produces young people for whom the joys of English literature are an unknown quantity, pupils who somehow get exceptional grades in final exams, yet seem barely capable of stringing a coherent sentence together, let alone writing an essay that might stir the imagination of the reader.
Am I alone in fearing the worst here? We all harp on about the lack of quality in some submissions, and allow a lot of leeway to those for whom English is not the primary language, but should be so tolerant of those supposedly educated here in the UK, but clearly lacking in even a rudimentary understanding of written English, as their pitiful attempts at writing clearly display.
To achieve the ambition of seeing the site we all love climbing higher up those search engine rankings, we have, in all honesty, to exercise kindness through cruelty. Whilst I applaud, heartily, the desire of any person to become a published writer, I feel that they should at least be capable of composing written works that are both understandable and properly written.
Please do feel free to pass comment on this post, because that is exactly what we need, if the site is to continue the improvement that has been in evidence since the introduction of the flag button. I and every other genuine writer on this site can and do make mistakes in spelling and grammar, which I hopefully catch in time, but at least we only submit pieces that can be read and appreciated. Proper English is losing ground, so beware the text-speak monsters.
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