DISQUS

Cindy Davis · 10 months ago

OK, OK, I KNOW you are right. I should capitalize more. It's not so easy to do on a cell phone, while driving, and talking, and looking for street signs.

44 year old technically challenged artist and mom.

MariaD · 10 months ago

English is my third language, and learning several texting jargons (IM, leetspeak, gamer codes) was never an issue. They have pretty small vocabularies, and are mostly transparent and fun, like little puzzles. In particular, lower case "i" is rather self-explanatory and easy to figure out, since "i" is not a separate word in English. It's a bit condescending to think on non-native speakers as not being able to figure out simple stuff like that.

However, it IS rude to use jargon among those who don't know the jargon, for example, use your field's terms when speaking to someone clearly outside of your field, or use gamer jargon talking to a non-gamer. I am having trouble with assumptions that whole populations (grandparents, non-native speakers, professionals) are ignorant of a widespread jargon, as a whole.

When adult professionals text or use Twitter, they use IM shorthand like everybody else. When they write white papers, they typically do not. I think it depends on the working situation, rather than on who you are.

So, in my opinion, it would make more sense to talk about situations, rather than people.

Emma · 10 months ago

Some interesting thoughts, though, certainly from the point of view of my students (university level - under/post graduate), I've noticed that it's the international students who are the most likely to use text abbreviations in emails etc., rather than the native speakers.
Possibly it's just coincidence.

Also, have you seen http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jul/05/sat...

I tend to aim to text/Tweet correctly - preferring to omit words that to shorten them, though I think that that's probably more of a reflection of my age (takes me longer to remember & type "b4" than "before" [no need to "remember" the contraction!]) .

As to longer pieces of work, I tend to remind students that they should use correct spelling, but I tend to put in in the context of professionalism & the work place, rather than impact on non-native speakers. That's possibly, though, due to the fact that University students are looking at the work place as their next port of call, unlike students in High School - who are more likely to be thinking about the next stage of their education.

Pat · 10 months ago

These were great points! I do use IM-speak when I am on plurk and twitter but that is about it. I find myself doing that when I leave comments on blogs and have to go back and correct myself. I tell my students there are times and places to do certain things and using slang is one of them. The same thing goes for the written language. Now that I'm taking classes to learn to speak Chinese, I am made even more aware of how difficult our slang is to others. I also think we need to be careful about using acronyms but I guess that is another post for another time. :)

MM · 10 months ago

I agree with you 100%. As I used to tell my children (when they were growing up), we will speak correctly in the house. What you do with your friends is your business. But by speaking correctly at home, they learned to THINK before they spoke. With IM, they also need o learn to THINK before they write.

Stephen Downes · 10 months ago

> But here, we are professional students and one day, you will be a professional of some kind. In that case, if you do not capitalize you will be judged as someone who doesn't care about your language.

This is a very poor response. It is equivalent to saying there is no reason.

> But most importantly, IM speak is very rude to those who have English as a second language and so that just makes it poor Digital Citizenship. As a Digital Citizen, you want to be inclusive and helpful to others AND a good communicator.

I tested the translation in Google, and you are correct. i does not translate as I in French and Spanish, and I assume, therefore, other languages as well.

But *this* is not the reason to capitalize I. There are many things Google does not translate, many of which are perfectly correct usages of the language. No person can know them all, much less adjust their language to match only what Google successfully translates.

So - why capitalize the i?

The simple reason is that the capitalization tells the reader that the I refers to a person - yourself - and is not being used in some other non-designated way. The lower case i is used for many other purposes - for example, as an iterative operator (for i=0,i<10,i++), it is used as an imaginary number (the square root of -1).

Moreover, the lower case use of I, especially in a typed message, could b a typo and therefore possibly 'it','is','in','if', etc. Using the upper case makes it clear that the use of the single letter in this context is not a typo.

IMHO, grammatical principle ought always to be based on *purpose*. Answers like "it's professional" or "it's part of being a digital citizen" are non-answers -- you have substituted reason with a slogan. And answers like "so Google can translate it" obviously have no connection to th original purpose of the rule, and are (as a consequence) arbitrarily narrow in their application.

coolcatteacher · 10 months ago

Surely, your response is more proper than mine. This wasy typed at 1 am last night in response to a teacher question and surely would be dramatically improved with your thoughts. Would love to share them as well.

Thank you for your insight. I know this post could be better written and remember that "i" is just one example, cu l8r and imho are all acronyms that are included in this imspeak example.

Thank you.

coolcatteacher · 10 months ago

I don't know, I've been thinking about it and to me, being a professional is important.

As a professional, there is a certain code of conduct -- one of ethics, inclusiveness and also one of presenting oneself as positively as possible. It is something that helps a person become more successful in life.

We talk about what it means to be a professional student all of the time in my class and add to the code of conduct as we see things that should be there. It is something we discuss a lot.

So, whereas, you may see this as a "because I said so" kind of answer -- it is something that my students and I would understand. It is important to deliniate in the minds of students how they should behave as students instead of socially because these are two distinct parts of their life. I've found that this illustration helps the students see what they are to be and they keep coming back to it.

I asked some of them about your thoughts and they really think that "being a professional student" is part of our vernacular and fits this example. I could see, however, how the words I've shared could be oversimplified and misunderstood and certainly, your thoughts make those arguments stronger of why we should capitalize and beware of IM speak in our educational activities.

I just don't think that "because I said so" or "because your English teacher says so" holds water -- it DOES have to be more than just that.