In today’s New York Times: letters regarding an op-ed from last Sunday: “Teaching to the Text Message,” by Andy Selsberg.

The letters reminded me that when I first read Selsberg’s essay a week ago, I intended to comment, but was waylaid by work and then beset by an upper-respiratory affliction so severe that I have been utterly tormented and unable to put a sentence together for four entire days. At last, however, the faint light of Hope glimmers ahead….

Selsberg wrote that he instructs the students in his freshman English class to write captions and product descriptions en route to learning longer-form writing, such as essays and research papers. The point of these exercises is to “reward concision” and encourage “economical and innovative” use of language. However, Selsberg takes off points for “gratuitous argot and emoticons.”

OMG. And to think that this very week, the Oxford English Dictionary LEGITIMIZED these very “popular Internet slang terms” by adding them to its hallowed lexicon. (See AP story here.)

As anyone who has studied language surely knows, it’s not untouchable or static. Language is constantly evolving because the speakers of languages interact. Back in the olden days of chain mail and swords — the lyfe so short and the craft so long to lerne — interaction happened by force and conquering. Then as people spread across the globe, languages spread with them, and we ended up with everything from outright adoption of languages across cultures to pidgin forms that marked entire societies.

Today we have TECHNOLOGY spreading language across our flat world instantly. And we have flattened our interactions with this new code they call  “popular Internet slang.”

Why do we punctuate our emails with a :)? What’s the point of LOL? If I sign off with <3, is that less amorous than “I love you” but stronger than XXX?

I know in my communications, particularly with some colleagues, a message is sometimes softened with a :) much more easily than by using words. Text communications lack the inflections and facial cues that mark in-person communications. So emoticons are a way of adding personalization. “Initializations,” or abbreviations, also have their utility, adding loads of meaning without the bulk.

It’s not that I think we should completely abandon Standard English and replace it with these abbreviated and symbolic forms. I’m every bit as much of a snob about some abuses — like people pronouncing “nuclear” as “nucular” — as the most buttoned-up grammar maven. But the goal of language is to communicate, and no one can argue that Internet slang doesn’t do that, both economically and innovatively.

So *\O/* (cheer)!  <3 (heart) the dynamics of language. And have a good day

Surprise! Age 20, wearing the robe, greeting trick-or-treaters at my barracks at Osan Air Base, Korea.

Hail to the writer’s prompt! From the National Federation of Press Women via the Woman’s Press Club of Indiana:

“December is a traditional month of gift-giving. What has been your most favorite/memorable gift you ever received at this time and why? Please include your name, when you received the gift, from who, and the age you were when you received it.”

A Mother’s Love

Our Scotch pine dripping “icicles” and old handmade ornaments was not the fanciest tree in the neighborhood. Nor were our gifts the coolest. It was true that four doors down, those kids scored a basketball goal AND a ping-pong table AND brand-new alarm clocks AND clothes, records, perfume and stockings filled with knick-knacks on that Christmas morning, 1976.

Me? I don’t remember what I got. What I do remember is that my mother received an envelope containing a hundred dollars. Real money, a gift from my dad.

My mom was very fond of “after-Christmas sales.” After Christmas, she used to say, was the best time to buy bedding and winter clothes. And in our chilly Northern Virginia household with four kids, somebody always needed something to wear.

That winter, apparently, the deficient child was me. I was 16 years old, and I lacked a robe. So my mother, who had never before received a gift of cash on Christmas, took her money and bought me a robe.

The robe’s royal blue velveteen fabric hung clear to the floor and a red sash ran around the middle. I had never been so warm.

But the real gift was my mom’s love. Because even though there must have been a hundred things she wanted for herself, she put my needs first. She gave me a robe, but it was the warmth of her love I felt that Christmas, and still feel today.

Satisfaction sometimes comes from unexpected places when one is a writer. The subject line in the below email and in the title of this post refers to a tip I received about a Knightstown family who moved everything out of their home except for a picture of Jesus. The scene would have been poetic if there had been an acutal story behind it, but there wasn’t (or at least, there wasn’t one worth telling).

From: McQuaid, Russ [mailto:rmcquaid@fox59.com]
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 3:24 PM
To: kelly.j.sharp@sbcglobal.net
Subject: RE: Saw Jesus. Not pursuing it.

JUST REREAD THE SUBJECT LINE. ONE OF THE GREATEST EVER.