I knew that teens had started incorporating abbreviations and emoticons in their school writing as a result of various mediums such as texting and instant messaging, but now it would seem that the
Oxford English Dictionary is embracing this. The online dictionary is adding "OMG," "LOL," and "FYI" to their database, which comes after the site added "bloggable" and "sexting." This is an effort on their part to keep up with the vastly expanding electronic communications age, claiming that these three terms "are quicker to type than the full forms and are useful in the digital arena when there's a character limit." While I think it makes sense that Oxford would add these terms since they're so prominent in our society, I don't necessary think they are terms that should be in an online dictionary. This may further perpetuate young people's use of these terms in their school writing, rather than proper English. Since this slang style of writing is appearing a lot in writing, it's necessary that students be taught the difference between the two. Perhaps if teachers and even parents made this distinction acronyms and emoticons wouldn't appear as much in writing.
So in my class, hippies, beatniks and punks, we are learning how technology affected the baby boom generation and that two major repurcussions of television were: fragmented images becoming of higher value, and the general dissipation of the alphabet. The implementation of acronyms into the dictionary seems to be a perfect example of both. obviously, having random acronyms be looked at as words shows how the alphabet is changing. I dont want to say that this makes the language worse (to say that something is bad simply because it is changing is a patently conservative argument and that is not a party I am willing to assign myself to). But it is certainly mutating in a way. It is interesting to see, I will say that much. Think back to the Victorian era, good ol' Willy Shakespeare invented words all the time. Now hindsight is 20-20 and today we revere every bit of ink that fell from his pen, but who's to say that at the time people didn't look at his new words and say that it was the general degradation of the english language. Shakespeare invented the word "lonely," now it is firmly implanted in Oxford; some lazy typer named StaceyKxoxox354@aim.com invented "LOL" however many years ago, and now it is right Shakespeare's words.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to fragmented images, think of LOL in this way. When we look at LOL, we dont see "laugh out loud," we see LOL. It is the image of those letters together that resonates with us, not what the letters stand for.
This really just makes me very sad. What has happened to us?
ReplyDeleteLOL, BRB, OMG, BFF. These are not words. These are slang acronyms used on AOL Instant Messenger.
They actually talked about this on Regis and Kelly this morning (well, it was actually Regis and Joy because Kelly was out sick) and it's more than just Internet acronyms that are being put in the dictionary. Words like "muffintop" and even the heart symbol (<3) are being put in the Oxford Dictionary.
I just feel that by putting abbreviations in the dictionary, we are teaching people that it's acceptable to use slang, which is normally done for time-saving purposes. We've spent many hours blogging and discussing in class the detrimental effects that new media has had on younger generations. These acronyms that are being put in the dictionary are typically used in such mew media settings.
I knew it was only a matter of time until these abbreviations or now, so-called, "terms" were added to the online dictionary...If not yet added to the mainstream dictionary, I have faith that in a short matter of time, we will find these terms written everywhere (not just in the online dictionary). It is frightening to see the power that teens have and by incorporating this lingo into their everyday vocabulary, you can see how much it's done already!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, Mckenna, I do agree with you. It really does scare me to think how this slang is could affect our vocabulary in the future. Do you really think these acronyms could eventually be used in professional works and inside classrooms?