Sigh.

[gridlore]

Reading about today's San Francisco Pride Parade on the Gate, and I finally see the theme for this year..

"Out 4 Justice"

People, would it kill the printing budget to include a three-letter word instead of the text-messaging horror that English is rapidly sinking into? Can we please accept that "4" is the number between "3" and "5". and that "for" is a word in English? I can almost understand the substitution of such shortcuts if you are using a device that is difficult to use, or when speed is necessary, but here we are discussing an event that attracts millions and has a budget to match!

Save English! Or at least the American version of the language!

Comments

[eleri.livejournal.com]

What's happening is exactly what happens to a language. Otherwise we'd all still talk and spell like Chaucer.

It wouldn't be much different if, say, someone decided that using '%' is the symbol for thâr, and you'd know which version of the word was meant by context.

The car is over %
I borrowed % lawn mower
% going on vacation

It's the nature of people to condense information down into it's simplest form, thus 'thou art' became 'you are' is becoming 'ur'. From a linguistic evolution standpoint, it's expected. Why spell out y.o.u.a.r.e. when u.r. makes the same sounds? Look at the evolution of letters themselves, why make a pictogram of a whole bird, when a couple simple stylus strokes gets across the same meaning?

The core of the language isn't changing, just the symbolic representations of those sounds.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

All true, but it still seems vaguely post-literate, and makes this English major's teeth hurt.

[bellacrow.livejournal.com]

weird, I took it to be about the 04 presidential election