Issue Date: December 4, 2005

SOCIETY

Instant nonsense

Cutesy IM-speak can't be good for the language, argues the author of the best seller "Eats, Shoots & Leaves."

By Lynne Truss

The good news about young people and their obsession with instant messaging? It may not entirely destroy the English language. The bad news? I worry that it's setting back teenagers and children when it comes to their command of language and the written word. How long will it be before Shakespeare editors are forced to translate Hamlet's most famous speech for the benefit of younger readers: "2B or N2B: that is the FAQ"?

Frankly, I'm a bit alarmed by instant messaging's impact. Three-quarters of U.S. teens who go online already use it, according to research from Pew Internet & American Life Project. E-mail, of course, paved the path for instant messaging and text messaging, and both are notorious for shortcuts. Teachers now find themselves grading essays by students who insist on the validity of "U" and "4" as substitutes for words that are, when you think about them, quite short in the first place. Oh, and let's not forget about "emoticons," like :) to say "I'm happy" or :( for "I'm sad."

You may object that this code-speak is the innocent work of young people who will grow out of it. But look at your own correspondence. Isn't "BTW" now accepted for "by the way," and "COB" for "close of business"? With onslaught comes acceptance. English embraces change; its academic exponents pride themselves on never saying a word against it. Instant messaging, therefore, has been greeted by the guardians of language as a brilliant marriage of speech, symbol and written word.

What worries me, however, is this: If young people cling to their own version of written English, will they ultimately not recognize real words? A large shift in attitude toward the written word already has taken place. Whereas older people regard writing as the higher use of language, many young people see writing only as a rather poor substitute for speaking.

"So it's the future of literature at stake now, is it?" I hear you ask in exasperation. "Aren't you like those uncool fuddy-duddies in the 1960s who said Bob Dylan was going to destroy poetry?" Time will tell, I suppose. But at least Dylan worked within the same language as Wallace Stevens and Walt Whitman, or even the 17th-century poet John Donne. A fan of Dylan could still read Donne. What we face now is something far more radical and disrespectful of language. What we do about it is up to us. As always, I'm personally torn: stand and fight to the death, or go to bed and pull the covers over my head? As Hamlet might sigh, "To sleep, perchance to dream" -- only, of course, instead of "sleep," he'd write |-I.

Lynne Truss is a writer who lives in England. She laments the passing of the properly placed comma and other crimes against the written word.