Written by brian_houghton on Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Question of the Day: Has Texting and Instant Messaging Killed Grammar?


Question of the Day: Has Texting and Instant Messaging Killed Grammar?

Today’s question comes from Doug, stemming from conversations had in the digital hallways of JAMM.  A few of us were bravely giving him a hard time because as of late, his email replies seem to be plagued with typos. Surely Doug had not given up on grammar, something he is constantly beating into our writings.  It’s like he’s still making an attempt to form full, correctly spelled words.  It’s just not happening for him, though.  He attributes this to the learning curve of the various automatic word correction features he is trying out on his new Android phone, and I for one am likely to believe him.
However, this does raise a bigger question.  Grammar, it seems, is on the way out for some people.  The majority of people’s writing taking form in chat and text messaging, they can’t be bothered to tap out the full words.  I kind of understood this when most phones were equipped with little more than the traditional 9 key layout, but with the bulk of today’s phones sporting full qwerty keyboards or large, on screen keyboards, what is the reason for the shortcoming of proper grammar?
What are your thoughts on this?  Hit the comments below and let us know.
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