from me to you//

October 15, 2016Dear Editor, I am writing you this letter to tell you my personal opinion with regards to your published article, “Twtr? It's majorly bad! Leading headteacher condemns 'text speak' for eroding schoolchildren's language skills” published last March 24, 2014 by the Daily Mail. While I was reading your article, I couldn’t help myself from shaking my head from time to time. As much as you want to convince the readers about how texting is polluting the English language, I believe that your arguments are not applicable to reality. I’ll be discussing three points in this letter which would contradict to the things you’ve mentioned in your article.Point one. It is stated in your article that teachers are complaining about how the students are doing badly in their essays and tests because they’re using abbreviations and colloquialisms which are commonly used in texting, yes? Don’t you think that this only reflects on how the teachers are not doing a great job educating their students with using the proper grammar and spelling? These children goes to school and are supposed to be taught with the right use of grammar and spelling despite the existence of texting.Point two. Before saying that texting is such a bad thing, look at yourself first. I’m pretty sure you text and use abbreviations. Everyone does. Nowadays, people don’t always have the time to text people with the right spelling, grammar and punctuation. We use texting to be able to communicate to people faster and if we actually make our texts grammatically correct, then it would probably take us longer before we could press send.And last but not the least, point three. I strongly disagree with what you said about how texting is eroding hard-learned skills in such basic areas as spelling and grammar. For your information, a UN SMS-based literacy program in Pakistan aims to help women in Islamabad to read. Now tell me, how is that eroding the people’s skills in spelling and grammar? I think that texting actually improves our vocabulary. With texting, we tend to talk more to people thru our own devices. Some people are more comfortable with talking thru texting which is why they tend to express themselves more.Also, according to a study published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, it is said that they’ve reviewed the text messages sent by students (primary, secondary and university) and how they did on their grammar and spelling tests. The researchers has found no connections with grammatical and spelling errors made in text messages and their actual understanding of grammar and spelling.I think that’s it’s better to say that “Text speak” doesn’t actually affect one’s ability to speak and write correctly or in a formal way. People write differently from the way they speak and text so I don’t think it’s fair to judge people’s intellect based on how they text. Sincerely, Nicole Munda

Comments

  1. Meraki07October 17, 2016 at 9:24 AM

    This is such a strong letter! You've definitely validated your cause with these points. I'd have to disagree with you on point number one though. Text speech propagates at a faster rate than what you learn in school and bad grammar cannot solely be attributed to teachers. On the other hand, we can practice writing "thru" text speech frequently.

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