Saturday, February 26, 2005
Loss of Eloquence
Grammatically incorrect phrases such as “lol, brb, how r u, wassup, and I luv ya,” are now commonplace in a culture teeming with online chat rooms, text messaging, and instant messenger. Literary eloquence has been lost because of countless instances of Internet shorthand. For example, “u” and “r” have seemingly more value than the grammatically acceptable “you” and “are.” Our culture prides itself in the ability to produce people who, despite glaring errors, can type a sentence – or a fragment of a sentence – in five seconds or less. This recent development succeeds daily in preventing people, completely capable of expressing comprehensive thought on paper, from living up to their written potential. Society’s lack of negative response to this electronic phenomenon results in an overall diminished style of writing. Similarly, computer communication does not seek to develop writing in general and it is a threat to the formal style of writing as a whole.