Throughout the ages, it seems, people have always railed against the laziness and linguistic corruption of their younger generations, and deplored the horrible misspellings, grammatical errors, and sloppy depths that language had newly fallen to. George Orwell lamented in a 1946 article that the English language in his time had become slovenly and vague. In 1848, a renowned German linguist bemoaned the corruption of English, the "most ground-down" of all Germanic languages, and which was liable to sink into mono-syllabicy within the near future. Going back further, prescriptive linguists, politicians, educators, and philosophers have been off and on lamenting the degradation of English ever since it was officially declared a separate language from Middle English, sometime in the 15th century. If you're really curious, there's a good list here, and several other can be found by searching "decline of English throughout history," but there are far too many to name. Needless to say, it's not a new phenomenon.
There are, of course, two schools of thought on this. On the one hand, yes, English language needs grammar and spelling rules... mostly to allow "educated" people to feel proud of their education and "proper" usage of the language. On the other hand, descriptive linguists argue- persuasively- that language is a living, evolving thing. All languages, they note, change over time, as new words are needed through technological advances, and old words fall out of common usage. English, with its penchant for borrowing from any other convenient language, tends to change faster than most, but it's certainly not alone.
That being said, I am prescriptive enough to appreciate people knowing how to spell properly, a skill that doesn't seem to be terribly common with the widespread use of text-speak. One of my friends recently asked me to download and join her her on an app called Draw Something- basically Pictionary for cell phones that you can play with friends or random strangers. My friend and I are both fairly literate and have similar outlooks on life, so we're rolling along quite well. Naturally, however, I decided to try out the random match games, and it has been mostly an exercise in patience, disbelief, and some amount of disgust.
Don't get me wrong, I will cheerfully admit I am not the greatest artist in the world. However, you would think that some basic ideas are fairly easy to get across, an assumption that I've found needs to be revised sharply downward. While I didn't think to take screenshots until today, here are some of the drawings that I've done, and the (fail) guesses that have come with them:
For the first picture, I think the person guessing was just trying random combinations of letters... they were doing words like, "Solnemap... polnneeom... planoen...." and then finally gave up. There's even an option of "bombing" extra letters out of your letter bank so you get a better chance; the person literally ended up with no extra letters and couldn't get it. Sigh The second picture was closer: the guesser typed "Toster... tostre... toestr..." and then also gave up. I watched it in utter disbelief that someone didn't know that there was an "a" in toast, but ok, fine, maybe he was in a bad mood or something, maybe? The last one I'll admit isn't the greatest, but since I don't have green as a color to work with yet, I had to do the best I could. I got the boat and the head of the person drawn, and the guesser started to type in the following as I continued to draw: "Chinese... chicken... chesa..." I was despairing of them when they finally typed in "sea..." and then gave up! So close, and yet...
While this is a very roundabout way of making my point, here it is: in making a game that requires people to spell correctly, and consequently giving them a reward for succeeding, and telling them what it was when they fail, I'm hoping that this is more than just a game, but rather a cunningly disguised way of encouraging young people to learn how to spell properly. It might be a long shot, but hey, look on the bright side, right? Despite the rocky start, I will probably continue to play, not only for the practice in drawing, but also for matching my wits against the (few) random people I've met who seem to be literate, and helping the others to improve, at least a little bit. Cheers!
There are, of course, two schools of thought on this. On the one hand, yes, English language needs grammar and spelling rules... mostly to allow "educated" people to feel proud of their education and "proper" usage of the language. On the other hand, descriptive linguists argue- persuasively- that language is a living, evolving thing. All languages, they note, change over time, as new words are needed through technological advances, and old words fall out of common usage. English, with its penchant for borrowing from any other convenient language, tends to change faster than most, but it's certainly not alone.
That being said, I am prescriptive enough to appreciate people knowing how to spell properly, a skill that doesn't seem to be terribly common with the widespread use of text-speak. One of my friends recently asked me to download and join her her on an app called Draw Something- basically Pictionary for cell phones that you can play with friends or random strangers. My friend and I are both fairly literate and have similar outlooks on life, so we're rolling along quite well. Naturally, however, I decided to try out the random match games, and it has been mostly an exercise in patience, disbelief, and some amount of disgust.
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| Random screenshots of both skilled and not-so skilled drawings. (The middle one is Kanye, fyi). |
Don't get me wrong, I will cheerfully admit I am not the greatest artist in the world. However, you would think that some basic ideas are fairly easy to get across, an assumption that I've found needs to be revised sharply downward. While I didn't think to take screenshots until today, here are some of the drawings that I've done, and the (fail) guesses that have come with them:
For the first picture, I think the person guessing was just trying random combinations of letters... they were doing words like, "Solnemap... polnneeom... planoen...." and then finally gave up. There's even an option of "bombing" extra letters out of your letter bank so you get a better chance; the person literally ended up with no extra letters and couldn't get it. Sigh The second picture was closer: the guesser typed "Toster... tostre... toestr..." and then also gave up. I watched it in utter disbelief that someone didn't know that there was an "a" in toast, but ok, fine, maybe he was in a bad mood or something, maybe? The last one I'll admit isn't the greatest, but since I don't have green as a color to work with yet, I had to do the best I could. I got the boat and the head of the person drawn, and the guesser started to type in the following as I continued to draw: "Chinese... chicken... chesa..." I was despairing of them when they finally typed in "sea..." and then gave up! So close, and yet...
While this is a very roundabout way of making my point, here it is: in making a game that requires people to spell correctly, and consequently giving them a reward for succeeding, and telling them what it was when they fail, I'm hoping that this is more than just a game, but rather a cunningly disguised way of encouraging young people to learn how to spell properly. It might be a long shot, but hey, look on the bright side, right? Despite the rocky start, I will probably continue to play, not only for the practice in drawing, but also for matching my wits against the (few) random people I've met who seem to be literate, and helping the others to improve, at least a little bit. Cheers!
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