If Wren and Martin were alive, they could have squirmed. A high school student who wanted leave wrote to his teacher ''I rqst u 2 grnd me 2 days leave.'' His teacher Sangeetha was shocked. Here was a case of mobile grammar (if it can be called so) spilling into real life and she could not take it.
''I punished him by making him write the letter 50 times,'' the angry lady said.
The hottest market for mobile phones is giving some jarring ringtones also...corrupting grammar in Short Messaging Service (SMS).
SMS is a fad with school and college students who were the only community to make out the exact meaning of the messages.
However, mobile grammar could prove disastrous in examination leading to wrong spelling, puncutation and capitalization.' Sadly, students in many schools and colleges are just SMS'ng in answer sheets leading to a new situation among academic community.
The declining standards of English have already set off a debate among the teaching community and now SMS had only queered the pitch.
Teachers say by ignoring grammar and spellings while typing SMS, students were creating a difficult situation for themselves. For, short forms and acronyms gradually start dominating the language.
The problem begins once youngsters start using the same style while messaging their relatives, colleagues or bosses.
A study by Rama Kumar, a student of the famous Loyola College here, who interviewed 100 respondents, found 95 of them used short forms while sending SMSs.
And, 40 per cent of college and high school students used short forms in academics, too. Ironically, 74 per cent admitted SMS spoiled grammar.
High school and college students have long replaced 'you' with 'u' while taking down notes and in answer sheets. In view of this situation, imagine the plight of the teachers who have to evaluate a paper peppered with 'n', 'ur' and 'r.' ''It unnerves me when I see students using SMS language in their answer scripts,'' says an English professor from Arts and Science College.
Mr S Kumar, a lecturer with Regional Institute of Engineering Science, has seen students resorting to short forms while running out of time to submit their papers. Such language was acceptable as long as it was confined to SMS, he said.
Ms Sangeetha said ''students usually send around 300 messages per day for which they type furiously. It might not be possible for them to type out whole sentences on such a small space.
''But, they should guard against letting SMS style creeping into other forms of writing,'' she said.
Official sources from MOP Vaishnav College for Women claimed some of the students, who incorporated SMS script, got rejected during the campus test.
Despite this, very few students felt it was more important to get the message across than to stick to grammar.
But there is still silver lining to the dark cloud. Some studnets still take the trouble of typing SMS using full sentences and proper grammar.
Rohini, a student of Arts College, hates using short forms while sending an SMS.
''I always type the sentences in full. That has really helped improve my spelling and vocabulary,'' she says.
Howz tht fr a chng?
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1 comment:
you have got an excellent blog. It would have more colour if u add telugu at places in the blog. Actually using telugu has become extremely easy to use after the advent of www.quillpad.in/telugu. Try out writing in telugu at a few places!
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