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January 27, 2005
Grammar Lesson
Started reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves today. It's funny, especially for someone who grew up having her grammar corrected constantly, mid-sentence, by her mother. The book states the case of "sticklers" who fight tirelessly for the correct use of apostrophes, commas, and "full stops" (it's British). Despite the humor, the author has a point -- punctuation is important, but so is fast, short, online communication.
I was an English major. I have a pretty good idea of how punctuation is meant to be used (my mother would disagree). But since work is always fast-paced and my primary form of communication is electronic (emails, IM), I notice myself leaving punctuation and good grammar out for expediency. It's just faster to say "launch pls, thx... btw, did you do such-and-such" than "Thank you. Please launch this file. By the way, ..." Even in emails to supervisors or large groups, it doesn't bother me much if I use "informal" language (read: sloppily punctuated, not well-formed, possibly misspelled). I would be mortified if anything in print appeared in that form. But I justify it online by thinking "It's this new medium thing, new rules apply, people understand, they even respect it."
Maybe we need to classify the use of English into multiple categories? Formal, informal? IM vs. published?
The problem is, I'm forgetting how to use good grammar and punctuation, and so is everyone else. (Kindly disregard egregious errors of grammar and punctiation in this blog -- I'm clearly using the new, informal version of the English language here.)
Posted by csageday at January 27, 2005 01:07 AM