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Topic: Is the English language as we know it heading the way of the dodo?
As cynical as this sounds, I think English is headed down the slippery slope towards oblivion. I mean, it's a resilient enough language that it will survive in one form or another, and, really, English is such a powerful language because it lends itself so well to bastardization. Still... I think there's a fine line between adapting a language and heading after it with an ice pick.
Letter writing: How many people write letters anymore? I know I rarely do. I recently had to pay a bill through the mail instead of being able to pay it online and I had to run out to the post office for stamps. I hadn't bought stamps in over five years! It seems no one writes letters anymore. It's all email, but they're just digital letters. No, emails are nothing like letters. You capitalize sentences, use words like "you" and "are" completely spelled out, and write something meaningful in a meaningful way.
Spelling: Does anyone know how to spell anymore? I'm prone to the frequent typo, but that's because I have poor typing skills. My spelling skills are fine! It's not like I'm even expecting people to spell the difficult words correctly - I'll settle for people correctly spelling simple words correctly!
Grammar: Hi, I'm Jake, and I'm a grammar Nazi. People don't understand the fundamental principles that glue our language together! I read reports at work, a professional setting mind you, and people with college educations are adding their punctuation like they loaded up a bunch of periods, semicolons, commas, and exclamation points into shotguns and just fired away! It also seems that people have an amazingly dofficult time constructing sentences that make sense. My day is filled with sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and dangling participles. Also, "they" is a plural pronoun. If a person is using it to replace using "he or she" in a misguided attempt at being politically correct, the least he or she could do is construct the sentence in a manner that accommodates "they" as the plural pronoun it is
The exclamation point: These are to be used in moderation. They have become devalued through overuse. No one ever needs to type "LOL!!!!!1!!!!!". One is enough, really. When a person stacks 12 of them in a row like that, he or she looks like a crazy person!
The Internet: Chatspeak, webslang, leet, and whatever else fall into this area. I don't even think I need to talk about this one.
Popular Culture: I listen to music, and I'm pretty sure people aren't even using real words any more. Nothing against anyone who uses this word, but what does "krunk" even mean? Misters Merriam and Webster don't know.
What is going on? Am I crazy for thinking my beloved language is dying in my arms?
Someone, please refute my points with intelligent, well thought out replies! Not only would this lift my spirits, but it would probably validate this as a debate and not just a rant poseted in the debate category.
-Jake
As cynical as this sounds, I think English is headed down the slippery slope towards oblivion. I mean, it's a resilient enough language that it will survive in one form or another, and, really, English is such a powerful language because it lends itself so well to bastardization. Still... I think there's a fine line between adapting a language and heading after it with an ice pick.
Letter writing: How many people write letters anymore? I know I rarely do. I recently had to pay a bill through the mail instead of being able to pay it online and I had to run out to the post office for stamps. I hadn't bought stamps in over five years! It seems no one writes letters anymore. It's all email, but they're just digital letters. No, emails are nothing like letters. You capitalize sentences, use words like "you" and "are" completely spelled out, and write something meaningful in a meaningful way.
Spelling: Does anyone know how to spell anymore? I'm prone to the frequent typo, but that's because I have poor typing skills. My spelling skills are fine! It's not like I'm even expecting people to spell the difficult words correctly - I'll settle for people correctly spelling simple words correctly!
Grammar: Hi, I'm Jake, and I'm a grammar Nazi. People don't understand the fundamental principles that glue our language together! I read reports at work, a professional setting mind you, and people with college educations are adding their punctuation like they loaded up a bunch of periods, semicolons, commas, and exclamation points into shotguns and just fired away! It also seems that people have an amazingly dofficult time constructing sentences that make sense. My day is filled with sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and dangling participles. Also, "they" is a plural pronoun. If a person is using it to replace using "he or she" in a misguided attempt at being politically correct, the least he or she could do is construct the sentence in a manner that accommodates "they" as the plural pronoun it is
The exclamation point: These are to be used in moderation. They have become devalued through overuse. No one ever needs to type "LOL!!!!!1!!!!!". One is enough, really. When a person stacks 12 of them in a row like that, he or she looks like a crazy person!
The Internet: Chatspeak, webslang, leet, and whatever else fall into this area. I don't even think I need to talk about this one.
Popular Culture: I listen to music, and I'm pretty sure people aren't even using real words any more. Nothing against anyone who uses this word, but what does "krunk" even mean? Misters Merriam and Webster don't know.
What is going on? Am I crazy for thinking my beloved language is dying in my arms?
Someone, please refute my points with intelligent, well thought out replies! Not only would this lift my spirits, but it would probably validate this as a debate and not just a rant poseted in the debate category.
-Jake