1) Nobody over the age of forty should be allowed to use text speak; it comes across as artificial and rather deluded. Mutton, in fact.
2) Text speak should only ever be used in an appropriate context. For commenting on a YouTube video it is fine, for a job application cover letter it is not.
I'm really quite cross about having to having to write this blog - surely it is merely a question of common sense - but apparently people are running amok linguistically, carelessly littering the world with LOLs and smiley faces. I've been noticing it for a while; intelligent sounding people commenting on serious online articles "Sounds lyk it cud b fun!!! :p!"etc, but a recent example shocked me to the core. An acquaintance broke the sad news of his sister's death to his family and friends via Facebook. This in itself is entirely acceptable now; it is a very practical way of communicating with a large group of people at once. Soon the messages of condolence began to flood in, including one, which unforgivably read: "Sorry for Ure loss :(".
Really? I mean, REALLY?? I don't mind telling you, I almost retched. The man had suffered a terrible bereavement, and this utter ass decided that the best way to respond was with a computer generated sad face.
We all, in the course of our busy, routine-oriented, automated lives, make mistakes. I have signed off e-mails to customers with kisses. I once heard a colleague terminate a telephone call to a tradesman with the words "Love you." I have signed a birthday card to my mother "Kind regards" and I know of at least one Sorry You're Leaving card that has circulated in my company with the words "Happy Birthday" hastily scrawled in the corner by an accountant. But to actually go on Facebook, read somebody's sad news, and to decide to comment in that fashion really beggars belief. Maybe the culprit suffers from some form of social disorder? It is the only valid excuse that I can think of.
Nobody writes letters these days, do they? Apart from banks, of course. Banks love to write letters. I have what is fondly termed a "Paperless Account", but I still receive several dead trees' worth of information from them every year. Heavens only knows how the "Paper Account" people manage. They must have nearly disappeared under the reams of "vital" correspondence by now. Anyway, I can be pretty sure that if a letter drops through by door it has come on official business. There are still occasions on which a letter, or at least some kind of card, can be a nice gesture - birthdays, engagements, bereavements, that kind of thing - but it is by no means obligatory. E-mail is faster and more environmentally friendly, and sites such as Facebook and Twitter are perfect for casual correspondence with casual acquaintances. E-Cards, with their lovely, helpful reminders are a godsend as far as I'm concerned. Let's not forget too that we have many people in our lives whose addresses we simply do not know, either because we have never been to their house or because we have at some point written the address on the back of a recipe and then lost it. So Facebook, as a medium, is fine.
BUT! That does not mean that we can use the same language to condole as to congratulate, to enquire as to complain. "Hope U get the job!!!" is perfectly acceptable (again, for anyone under forty). "I am writing 2 complain re Ure service! :(" is absolutely not.
Try thinking about it as the difference in the way you would talk to your best friend, and the way you would talk to your mother, or grandmother. All of us change our speech depending on our environment - it's so automatic we hardly realise we're doing it, yet most of us are hardly recognisable as the same person. When I talk to my parents, swearing, argot and the dreaded "like" are all erased. Even my pronunciation is subtly different. This is as it should be. Our manner of speech should always reflect and adjust to where we are and who we're with. And our written communications should do the same. It's a question of empathy, and of respect; two things which are disappearing from our society even faster than basic literacy.
Right. I'm off to dig a path to my front door through all my bank letters. At least they make me feel popular.
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