Highland High School sophomore Chelsea Johnson, 15, loves to talk. The Gilbert student keeps in touch with many of her classmates on the telephone, but the main way she communicates with her friends when they are apart is through Internet instant messaging.
Johnson exchanges messages almost daily with up to 200 friends using the screen name BabyCuzz – and another 200 friends using the screen name ChelJ.
Overall, she maintains about 25 instant messaging identities.
‘It’s like talking on the phone, except on the computer,’ Johnson said. ‘And I can have multiple conversations at the same time.’
Like most people who use instant messaging, Johnson said she throws out conventional spelling, grammar and punctuation when she writes in favor of speed and brevity.
She omits vowels, punctuation marks and capital letters. And instead of spelling out common phrases, she employs an arsenal of abbreviations and acronyms that would baffle many parents.
The informal language works great among teens in e-mails, chat rooms and instant messages, but many East Valley writing teachers say the slang has also started showing up on class assignments.
‘You’re so used to cutting things down and making it faster and shorter that you do it without thinking about it,’ Johnson said.
LANGUAGE POLICE SOUND THE ALARM
Associated Press editor Norm Goldstein said the lackadaisical writing habits that students learn online have also started showing up in business e-mails and other forms of communication outside school.
‘Instead of improving the quality of our written communication, the pop culture impact of e-mail has degraded it into a ‘fast food’ shorthand that often ends up reading like either bad porn dialogue or something so childish even ‘Sesame Street’ wouldn’t allow it,’ said Goldstein, who oversees publication of the Associated Press Stylebook, a resource guide for writers."
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