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The sarcasm wasn't evident? I thought the ellipsis and last two sentences put it away that I was tongue-in-cheek frustrated. As for point 2: yes, English is ce

The sarcasm wasn't evident? I thought the ellipsis and last two sentences put it away that I was tongue-in-cheek frustrated. As for point 2: yes, English is certainly devolving. I graded papers in college -- "u" and "lol" and "tho" being present in an academic paper is a worrying trend. The writing ability of the average college-aged person that I observed personally worried me about the future of prose, and educationally we're not doing anything about it (the guilty parties also don't care). Admittedly, my sample size is small, but I can't imagine this isn't the case elsewhere. It isn't limited to English, either. My U.S. History class in high school did a hell of a job teaching me about the plight of Asian-American immigrants at Ellis Island in the 20th century (that was our first lesson), but completely skipped the 18th and 19th centuries. The new American education.

jsnell 16y ago
Why should the archaic "you" or "though" with all those useless vestigial letters be considered somehow more evolved than the variants that correspond more closely to the spoken language? Likewise what's wrong with "lol"? You obviously understood what they meant, and conveying that information is exactly the purpose of language. Languages have always changed, and grumpy old men have always complained about how those changes are destroying the language. But despite that perpetual cycle of corruption lasting for thousands of years, we are in fact not communicating by pointing and grunting.
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  We are in fact in many cases not communicating at all. Witness the wild misinterpretations on Hacker News, we've all experienced it. Witness the fracturing of language by region, city or neighborhood. Witness my inability to comprehend vacuous television dialog dominated by 20-somethings. - Grumpy Old Man
- jedsmith 16y ago
  > grumpy old men have always complained about how those changes are destroying the language I'm 24.

jsnell 16y ago

Why should the archaic "you" or "though" with all those useless vestigial letters be considered somehow more evolved than the variants that correspond more closely to the spoken language? Likewise what's wrong with "lol"? You obviously understood what they meant, and conveying that information is exactly the purpose of language. Languages have always changed, and grumpy old men have always complained about how those changes are destroying the language. But despite that perpetual cycle of corruption lasting for thousands of years, we are in fact not communicating by pointing and grunting.

JoeAltmaier 16y ago
We are in fact in many cases not communicating at all. Witness the wild misinterpretations on Hacker News, we've all experienced it. Witness the fracturing of language by region, city or neighborhood. Witness my inability to comprehend vacuous television dialog dominated by 20-somethings. - Grumpy Old Man
jedsmith 16y ago
> grumpy old men have always complained about how those changes are destroying the language I'm 24.