OUR VIEW: Online jargon doesn’t harm English language

We’ve created a new language through social media. Language used when sending instantaneous messages and posts on Pinterest or Twitter shouldn’t need to read the same way an essay does. However, for those who are adamantly against shortened words and sentences without periods, we respect your need to be grammatically correct at all times.

This idea was brought to our attention by an Idaho professor who visited campus last week and said social media are ruining the English language, but what is the English language? Since its beginning, the English language has been transforming constantly – new words are added and new rules developed to contain the chaos that is English. Too many objects and ideas needed names, and it seems the word-inventors ran out of ideas, which is why we have words like “to” and “too.” But why did we need the word “too” in the first place when the word “also” exists? Beats us.

At what point does a language become ruined? We believe that many elderly people would agree the English language was ruined with the invention of rap music. It’s all relative, really. A problem does exist when a social media user fails to capitalize sentences in employment cover letters due to poor tweeting habits. People can’t be that daft, can they? We prefer to think optimistically about our generation.

The English language is not a part of our culture capable of being ruined – it’s been around for centuries and will be here for centuries to come. Anyone who cares enough to be an educated member of society will be forced into English classes in high school and college. Hopefully, they will listen during these classes and realize that being able to use proper English, and explain one’s ideas and feelings with these skills, is the only road to take if you want anyone to take you seriously.

Let English be English with all its quirks and inconsistencies. In this same regard, let online babble be online babble. English is a way of art, and what good would this form of art be if it was not adjustable? The human race is in constant need of new ways to express itself. Seemingly uneducated online ranting is just one of the many ways we have found to successfully convey our important, and unimportant, ideas to the world.