The English Language & The Way of the Dodo

[voice]

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

[Staind1982]

Let me try to tackle this one...
The English language is hardly going the "way of the Dodo." Many countries have millions of people who are well versed in the English language, mostly "proper English," even though it is not their primary one. Very few languages have completely died out and the English language will hardly be one of them. Yes, there is going to be variations of "proper English," hell, in America we have multiple variations (some of which are sad and pathetic but still a variation).

Letter Writing
As for letter writing, technology has lent us another way to communicate. The reason we have steered clear of formal letter writing is because we have become a society of "I want it and I want it now!" E-mail is so much faster and easier to use. If we never evolved from typewriter, at some point handwritten letters would still go out the window in favor of the faster typewriter. However, if you do want to convey a highly important subject to someone there is no better way than an actual handwritten letter. Another problem with handwritten letters not being, well... written is not a product of the highly efficient Internet, but rather the telephone. This invention alone brought your farthest neighbor into your home in seconds. This was the initial catalyst for the impending demise of the letter.

Speling (Get it?)
I completely agree with you. Seemingly most people fail to use any type of spell check, including just proofreading, prior to unleashing an opinion on the world. Take the couple of seconds to reread your post, letter or anything prior to sending it.

Grammar
This is a huge problem when it comes to the Internet, wait, this is a huge problem in speech too. Grammar is highly important but this has gone by the wayside. People now think that it is cool or fun to speak in ways no person should be able to comprehend but we do.

Exclamation point
Sure one exclamation point is fun, but when you can use forty it is a blast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just kidding!! Seriously the point is taken when one (!) is used but I think the multiple use of the exclamation point is just for effect but should be limited.

The Internet
The Internet languages used don't even classify as English except in their converted form. Sadly we have too many people that get all caught up in this.

Pop Culture
Not to pick on a particular culture but the "rap culture" is the major culprit of the destruction or altering of the English language. There has not been a song that has come out in recent years that has not altered the English language in fact this same culture has invented words that have even made it into an actual dictionary. I am not sure why groups need to make up a language; most of us grew out of that stage as small children.

Jake,

You are not overly crazy when it comes to the English language. The English language will never die out unless there is some catastrophic change in cultures. To many nations have English-speaking people and the only difference is the verbiage used. Look to Britain. They have some words we will never understand let alone use, unless some rapper decides to adapt them. Yes, the English language is falling into a pit of bad grammar and simplification (ex. J/K, LOL and other abbreviations) but this is something that will continue to change. Hell, we barely use phrases from different eras here in America. The English language is not dying just adapting to accomodate an ever-changing, ever-evolving global society.

[fireball87]

English is not dieing, that said, theres at least a reasonable chance Chinese might become the international language within 3 centuries. The internet community on the other hand is degrading exponentially.

[jensen]

Well, you can say the Queens English is dying but English as it is used it flourishing and adapting and changing. even the chat rooms with all their abbreviations are all based on the english language like btw - for by the way. syl-see you later.

So English is very much alive. But the Queen's English suffers from the misuse and abuse daily.

[alcramer]

When I consider the current state of the English language, I often go back to George Orwell. Years ago, in Egypt, I had a long conversation with an Arab engineer. His English was very poor (and I had no Arabic) but he spoke very clearly, very powerfully, and I understood him well. Conversely, I've been listening to Condaleeza Rice for nearly 8 years now and still have no idea what she's talking about.

[mattura]

As long as we have schools and teachers, we will have English.
In fact, foreigners often have better grammar/spelling than many 'native' speakers.
Technology does make people lazy, and makes learning 'proper' English less important, as do the current trends in employment (transferable skills, rather than English, Maths etc), but English changes as required to suit new things. It is modern, and like all languages, evolves.