Stop reading e-mail! Your literacy is at stake!

As the following anecdote demonstrates, George Orwell was spot on in his assessment of the value of being an intellectual.

While cleaning up a pile of rather outdated mailings, Mrs. SC noticed a copy of the quarterly PBK mailing, The Key Reporter, specifically the Summer 2004 issue. Like all issues, it's mostly self-congratulatory fluff ([which makes it well-suited to be part of your mail; besides, it was her copy -- ed. But I'm in there too! -- SC What was that about Orwell? -- ed.]). Briefly reviewing it, she was struck by a letter to the editor, which was captioned "Phonetics". It promised to be a rejoinder to a letter from a previous issue, which featured the claim:

“e-mail users are lowering literacy with poor spelling and grammar, and initials used for phrases and sentences.”

That claim (originally in the Spring 2004 issue) turned out to have come from a letter so breathtakingly free of ironic self-reflection that it merits reprinting in full:

Brian McFadden’s response [Winter Key Reporter] to a previous letter about implementing standardized spelling based on phonetic pronunciation was very convincing as to why doing so would not work.

However, anyone may use a phonetic system to save time and paper. I began in clinical psychology testing, in order to write responses quickly. I liked the results so much that I began using my system in letters to family and friends. Some complained, but others responded in kind.

We omit most inside vowels and some syllables, use “2” and “4” in place of words, “u” for “you,” etc. But there is no reason to standardize. Only understanding counts. Of course, such an approach works because we know the correct spelling of a word before we change it.

Apparently e-mail users are lowering literacy with poor spelling and grammar, and initials used for phrases and sentences, as they create their own language. Years from now we may have a very low literacy rate and a very literate intellectual elite, as in ancient times. Simplifying with phonetics would not prevent this from occurring.

Byrna Porter Weir, Rochester, N.Y.

There is nothing quite so amusing as seeing a would-be grammar maven boasting of her skills in creating an elaborate shorthand system which discourages "proper" spelling and grammar. SC is all for standards, but not for priggishness, especially of the humorless variety.

Now, as previously stated, this came to Mrs. SC's attention, and in turn your host's, due to a letter written in response. At first, that letter seemed like a ray of linguistically educated sunshine:

E-mail users are creating new language, but no language has ever been static. The evolution of American English may be speeding up now that people communicate by keyboard as much as by voice, but that is not necessarily bad. In fact, I have great hopes that increasing computerization will result in improved literacy. Children who previously had no motivation for learning to read and write should be motivated to do so in order to share the benefits of the Internet and e-mail.

But no.

If we consider the ability to spell words properly as “literacy,” the problem is not in e-mail usage but in our educational system. I see far more errors now in published books than I did as a (literate) child. The downward trend in proper spelling and grammar started long before e-mail became popular.

Like Jonathan Swift, the author is convinced that he is living through the decline and fall of Proper English. There's no point in arguing with such people until after they have been beaten roundly about the ears with a copy of Baugh and Cable. Fortunately, another Phi Beta Kappa illuminatus does see the irony of the situation:

She writes, regarding her phonetics, “We omit most inside vowels and some syllables, use ‘2’ and ‘4’ in place of words, ‘u’ for ‘you,’ etc.” Later she writes, regarding e-mail users (whom she accuses of “lowering literacy”), they use “poor spelling and grammar, and initials for phrases and sentences.” I fail to see the difference. If “years from now we ... have a very low literacy rate and a very literate intellectual elite,” Ms. Weir and her correspondents may make the same contribution to this result as we e-mail users.

After reading exchanges like these, SC can only sigh and post links to Meihem in ce Klasrum.

Comments

[polyglot conspiracy]

1. People actually read the Key Reporter?
2. Can one even "lower literacy"? The literacy rate, maybe. Or the literacy level. Not so sure about literacy itself.