The other day, I received a letter from a reader who is having an extreme emotional response to others’ bad grammar. What should she do?
Dear Auntie Siobhan,
Would you consider writing a post on the issues of being an English teacher and social media user?
When I read status updates on Facebook and other social media sites, I actually want to unfriend people who make consistent grammatical errors. If anyone posts on my wall and uses “lol” or “its” instead of “it’s” (or worse, “it’s” instead of “its”) I have the great urge to delete the friend and the message. Is there something wrong with me?
Sometimes I want to write to friends and correct them but I know that I’d look like a pedantic twit if I did. I don’t mind the odd typo, but I get scared when it seems as though friends of mine don’t know how to write in English.
Remember in 1984, when they had Newspeak and they trimmed down the language? That could happen to our language! It’s losing its meaning.
It could be argued that if you can’t articulate a thought you are not having the thought. I don’t want our language to be reduced to lols. I’ve only unfriended one person so far, but I’ve unsubscribed from many…I know that many great writers invented words, and that our language is always changing. I’m all for developments and new ways of expression, but I fear the sloppy use of language and shrinking meanings.
What should I do? It’s really making me crazy.
Yours, S.
I’ve written a response, but haven’t yet sent it to S – I will publish it on Thursday. In the meantime, I’d like to know your thoughts. Have you ever had a similar urge? Is bad grammar reason enough to unfriend someone in the social media world? Let us know what you think.
Image by miamiamia
What do you think?