Friday, February 19, 2010

Zombie grammar in the workplace

"Lol" "Brb" "Thx" "Cya" We have become a society of acronyms and abbreviations. Back when IMing first came out, parents were outraged by the secret codes their teenagers were using to communicate to their friends. Now, ten years later, those kids-turned-parents are texting their kids to tell them where to meet them.

Communication has become mass forwarded jokes on e-mails and texts and little thought is put into everyday messages. Typos and abbreviated syntax has become a tolerated form of "fast talk." We think in facebook status updates. "Emily is wanting some ice cream." "Emily found no ice cream in the freezer." "Emily is going to the store, cya lata." How will this stream of consciousness culture affect business transactions?

I edit press releases submitted to a small newspaper. Press/News releases supposedly written by professional men and women are full of grammatical errors that a fourth grader could point out. The vocabulary is slang and remedial and misspellings are rampant. When I open a press release and see the opening sentence is four lines long, I wonder what has happened to the Adults of America? Forget the youth, they never could spell anyways. Now adults are being infected by this plague of dead syntax.

The solution? Read an AP stylebook, diagram a sentence, check that sentence! People have become lazy in their language, and language is the most important aspect in any culture. Lose the richness of a language and watch a bunch of zombies gnaw their dangling prepositions and split infinitives with emotionless passion. When language in any context becomes sloppy, it threatens the integrity of the people who use it.

1 comment:

PoiemaPrincess said...

Em, You are so awesomely witty! Title is greatness... posts are SO true and relevant. :D In love with your blog already... Can't wait to see what's coming next! ^_^