These are emails I received from my students this
week:
· *
i pluged in my usb flsh drive and i
opened the file for the
homewrk and i can't belive i repeated a question. could i turn the rght one in?
homewrk and i can't belive i repeated a question. could i turn the rght one in?
(You don’t need to conserve letters. Letters are not
on the endangered species list.)
· *
i can't make it to your class today. please email me
today’s class notes.
(Sure, let me just quickly type up notes from a three-hour
class. And what’s your home address? I’ll hand deliver them.)
·
* is 12 okay?
(Is 12 what okay? I have 80 students. A little context would be appreciated.)
AND WHY WON’T ANYONE CAPITALIZE THEIR “I’s”!
Oh no! I’m getting bitter.
25 comments:
i'll drink to this! i feel bad now, i'm encouraging your habit. ;-D
Seriously though, text messaging and eMail have crippled language. Students I work with get upset when they have to use entire words. True story.
I once had a student surprised that "I" was supposed to be capitalized. She only learned this because Word kept auto correcting her.
Fortunately (I think), I work with middle school students, so there's still time for them to learn the correct way to write.
Maybe...
Oh, I hear you. Sadly, I hear you.
You're not getting bitter, I share your rage. These people are students, they should be better than this. I think how they act and carry themselves outside of school hours proves what they're really like.
My first thought when I saw the title to this post was: do you need a reason to drink?
I think that student was asking is 12 brain cells enough to take your class?
It's funny, typing this on my ipad mini, it won't let me stylistically lowercase my i's anymore, I guess the ghost of ee Cummings in me is gone forever.
whenever you're free, join me at the bar later tonight, you know which one, I'm always there...warning, though: I take three hours to fully enjoy my 12-cent Coke.
Yup - getting kids to correctly type: I, are, you, your... is getting harder and harder!
jenny yer envited to drnk with me i'll b @ the poysoned pen saloon from 8 til they mop me up and turn out de lites
i'll b the sic as a dog dude sharing a tabul with jose jim jack & jill (jill is a prosetotoot um proztatoot ... jill is a hore
c u their!
~ stephen
Jenny-
If it makes you feel better, I see worse from ADULTS WITH COLLEGE DEGREES!
I not only drink...I'm thinking of moving from bourbon to grain alcohol....
Larry
I just read Late Phoenix's comment-I had a boss about ten years ago who never capitalized anything in an email.
During one of my weekly meetings with him early on, I said, "Tom-who are you, ee f#@king cummings?"
He told me was just lazy.
But he was the boss, so I guess he can get away with it.
I'm sorry that based on the teacher comments above that this is a recurring trend.
This boss was making a salary that would have put him on Obama's "pay your fair share" list, and is now a senior executive at another company.
I would venture to guess he was a little more mainstream during the years he was making the impression that got him there
These young people do not realize that this sloppiness with the written word can be used to form an opinion about them that they would rather not have factored in to salary increase and promotional decisions.
Larry
I'd be right there drinking with you. Yikes!
Your going through classic teacher syndrome. I have the exact same feelings about my students! Here in Malaysia they seem to hate the letter 'S' when writing 'three pen' or 'many ball' etc. Drives me nuts!
Duncan In Kuantan
Bahaha! :-)
Capitalising the 'i' is hard work. You have to press the caps lock and then you have to unpress it to go non-capital! It's a capital job, and these days, the kids are mighty busy with their Android apps. The same goes for going frugal with letters. Besides, it's a so in and herdy (as in a herd) thing to do and you are scared of being not part of the herd. It's scary you know, to be a non-conformist. Ah, even the word, 'non-conformist' is so unherdy! I had prefer 12. And can you please send me the class notes? My address is: c/o lifeasanordinarymalaysian.
And now I know for sure I made the correct choice not to become a teacher :)
Sometimes there are no words. But that was a funny post. You should do these on a regular basis.
waaaaaaaaaah I am guilty. This is what texting did to me.
I used to have trouble with capitalization in this one high school English class. After graduating I eventually used all-caps. Even found a typewriter (wha?) that was just all caps.
May I say that you are a very funny person, I could learn a lot from you. About grammar and humour, because I didn't learn much in school, just from reading (thank heaven THEY know grammar).
Hello, Jenny. Sadly, I agree with Larry. I work at a globally known raisin processor/packer and some of the worst e-mails I have ever seen were sent by Managers and Directors. *slaps head* It really is very frustrating. Hang in there, my friend. *pours glass of wine and hands it over*
-Jimmy
Instead of drinking, hand out F's instead. I'm sure that'll work much better.
r u serius?! A round of drinks and F's for all!
I think the reason many people don't capitalize the I is because you need to have a strong left pinky. Most people have very weak left pinkies and can't press the shift key hard enough to make the cap work.
I want to ask about this part:
CAPITALIZE THEIR “I’s”!
Should there be an apostrophe between "I" and "s" with the exclamation point out of the quotes? I used to write them that way, and someone told me they were both wrong.
Your students and my clients have a lot in common...
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