THE INTERNET AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE BY: TERRENCE CARTER English 393 Harris presented by: Colin Smith

Bibliography Carter, Terrence. "The Internet and the English Language." Spring1999. NIVA Inc. 11 June 2009.

Overview The writer, who is a computer technician, begins by recalling a story of a typist who uses technology as an excuse for poor conversational grammar A history of how people began “chatting” via the Internet Issues with informality and anonymity Conclusions, and the changes to expect with new forms of communication

Opening Anecdote The writer recalls a person whom could type at over 80 words a minute, with no grammatical mistake, in her profession He later receives an from this same typist using terms like “ how RU” and “cu l8r” This obviously perturbs the writer due to her lack of concern in conversational communication, when she is fully capable of writing in a more refined fashion

A Little History The ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency Network) was developed in 1969 by the American Department of Defense Originally 15 nodes, and 23 computers IRC’s (Internet Relay Chat) remain as useful forums of specific conversation and are employed today in various media groups, as well as social networking tools

Tendency of Tone “Net users tend to "speak" in a loose and informal tone; their word choice is often colloquial and diction tends to be poor.” Conversations tend to resemble people who are close, or acquainted, when in fact they probably have never met. Secretarial contractions such as w/ (with) and btw ( by the way), now have been expanded to terms of delight such as LOL (laughing out loud)

The "Invisible Person" Syndrome A certain accountability indifference is drawn from the fact that Internet identities do not denote your actual identity Because the average reader of conversation does not care who you really are, why should they care about your attentiveness to structure, grammar, and spelling ?

Internet Tools The writer believes Internet tools to be useful, however he believes they also “breed sloth and are not without flaws” Spelling and Grammar checking tools only draw of off the word libraries stored within its software, and are often clumsy when using peculiar terminology These tools typically overlook homonyms and oddly phrased sentences to the dismay of the neglectful writer

Conclusion It is only a matter of time before lengthy, yet commonly used terms become hyphenated or shortened to ease conversation Technology has skewed some terms in favor of newer context Technology changes life which then changes language We should strive for a median between “net-speak” and formal English, when we are online to avoid permanent damage to our concept of the language

This concludes the presentation Does anyone have any questions or comments ?