The dot thickens: Eng lit. now 2up2d8 4words

[The MoUsY spell-checker]

Look at this article from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Basically, some people think that classic texts are too complicated, and they are being "simplified" into textspeak so that they will be easier to study. According to the article, there is an English professor that supports this idea.

Now, many people will find classic texts difficult to study, but is there any point in studying textspeak versions? I mean, English literature should be in English, not textspeak! As if there aren't enough people who use textspeak? Now they're going to teach in it?

What do you think?  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

Horrible, simply horrible. I can read "txt tlk" when I need to, and I wasn' t even able to translate a lot of those passages. As a grammarian, that makes me want to stick needles in my eyes.  

[i_heart_ron]

That is utterly hideous.

Then again, I have problems with the "American" editions of Harry Potter. When I was a child, I worked out British grammar and diction on my own. Of course, when I was a child, I also read all of Dickens in one summer for fun.  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

They Americanize the American edition of HP? Terrible. I've read British books before, and they were always spelled in the British way. I say, keep the words as they are originally and if the kid doesn't know what one of them means, let him look it up in the damn dictionary.  

[i_heart_ron]

Sure enough, they are Americanized.  

[~prize_in_the_box~]

That's terrible and the writing's ugly!  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

That's ridiculous. I hate how publishers dumb everything down for American audiences because they think we're all too illiterate to look words up in the dictionary.  

[DarkElf27]

Horrifying. I shudder to think of what might happen if this spreads....  

[1337 p1r4t3]

Perposterous.
If they can't learn English then what makes them think they can speak n00b?

 

[Myriane]

This is just outrageous. This is as bad as what they are doing to French down here, they made some mistakes become no mistakes, and they weren't those who were the most confusing... It frustrates me to no end. I don't like how, in today's world, to be cool, you have to have a spelling worst than an heroin addict who didn't have his fix (I don't know how bad it could be, it is just a figure of speech). I hate how everything should always go faster and faster and faster. If they go any faster, they will hit a brick wall. And we, literate persons who gave a damn about proper language and grammar, will watch and laugh at their faces...  

[[-T h e a t r e.G e e k-]]

I think I just retasted my lunch. That was foul and disgusting! Well written literature should be in it's purest most form, not some crummy txt-speak. >_<  

[TeccaN9nja]

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo [/star wars moment]

What in the blue hell is going on here. i mean when using a cell phone, typing like that is fine, it saves space and you have limited space for text messages on cell phones and its hard to type with those things untill you get good at it. Outside that, no. Especially when it comes to great works like that. This isn't right.  

[tokkitoria]

That's horrible....so horrible it...burns gonk .  

[counting pulses]

If we need to dumb literature down, doesn't that say something about the general populace? gonk Books shouldn't be abridged, although side-by-side versions are useful for reading Shakespeare.

2b?not2b?=?

That looks like confusing computer programming, to me.  

[-M- Mellolicious]

...Oh, God.
That's just... Wow. -_-;; Are they really going to do that?
I just... I don't know what to say, other than this is really, really dumb.
If they go through with this, I'm going to freaking murder someone.