Quotation Of The Day: Young Texters Don't Like Periods Edition

Apparently the punctuation mark indicates anger. From The New Republic:

This is an unlikely heel turn in linguistics. In most written language, the period is a neutral way to mark a pause or complete a thought; but digital communications are turning it into something more aggressive.

“Not long ago, my 17-year-old son noted that many of my texts to him seemed excessively assertive or even harsh, because I routinely used a period at the end,” Mark Liberman, a professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, told me by email. How and why did the period get so pissed off?

It might be feeling rejected. On text and instant message, punctuation marks have largely been replaced by the line break. I am much more likely to type two separate messages without punctuation:. . . .

“The unpunctuated, un-ended sentence is incredibly addicting,” said Choire Sicha, editor of the Awl. “I feel liberated to make statements without that emphasis, and like I'm continuing the conversation, even when I'm definitely not.”

Other people probably just find line breaks more efficient. An American University study of college students’ texting and instant messaging habits found they only used sentence-final punctuation 39 percent of the time in texts and 45 percent of the time in online chats. The percentages were even lower for “transmission-final punctuation”: 29 percent for texts and 35 percent for IMs. The same is likely true of Twitter, where the 140-character limit has made most punctuation seem dispensable.

The Problem That Treating Grammar As A Science May Soon Cause Me

The Oklahoma legislature is considering a bill that will prevent a student "in any public school or institution" from being "penalized in any way because the student may subscribe to a particular position on scientific theories."

I'm sure the intent of the bill is to allow students to express religious beliefs in science class. If some Oklahoma young'un wants to contend that the earth is only 6,000 years old, the biology teacher who is discussing evolution cannot penalize the student.

I'm not sure if Gus Blackwell, the bill's author has thought through the ramifications of the bill's language. Since some contend that grammar is science, that same Oklahoma young'un could turn in poorly written papers because grammar is a scientific theory with which she or he disagrees. The young'un may even try to use French sentence structure and Spanish vocabulary in an English class.

Of course, one could always contend that Yoda provided the only way to communicate. Overreach the problem frequently is.

Quotation Of The Day: Pop Song Grammar Edition

M. Molly Bakes discusses pop songs that prompt her to argue. This shot at Justin Bieber makes the grammar teacher in me smile. My students will probably see it this fall.

Song: Justin Bieber - "Boyfriend" 

Lyrics in question: "If I was your boyfriend, I'd never let you go"

Argument: You mean "If I were your boyfriend," kiddo. I know you've been living on a tour bus since you were a tiny baby, but that's no excuse not to learn your native language. Even Canadians use the subjunctive.

Quotation Of The Day: Grammar Edition

From this Kyle Wiens post in Harvard Business Review:

On the face of it, my zero tolerance approach to grammar errors might seem a little unfair. After all, grammar has nothing to do with job performance, or creativity, or intelligence, right?

Wrong. If it takes someone more than 20 years to notice how to properly use "it's," then that's not a learning curve I'm comfortable with. So, even in this hyper-competitive market, I will pass on a great programmer who cannot write.

Grammar signifies more than just a person's ability to remember high school English. I've found that people who make fewer mistakes on a grammar test also make fewer mistakes when they are doing something completely unrelated to writing — like stocking shelves or labeling parts.

In the same vein, programmers who pay attention to how they construct written language also tend to pay a lot more attention to how they code. You see, at its core, code is prose. Great programmers are more than just code monkeys; according to Stanford programming legend Donald Knuth they are "essayists who work with traditional aesthetic and literary forms." The point: programming should be easily understood by real human beings — not just computers.

And just like good writing and good grammar, when it comes to programming, the devil's in the details. In fact, when it comes to my whole business, details are everything.

I have three quick reactions.  First, I need to proofread more carefully before I hit publish. Second, I have told students that a link exists between programming and grammar.  It's good to see someone support that premise. Finally, grammar is necessary but people who write with good grammar may still produce boring work: feel free to insert a necessary not sufficient cliche.

HT: Andrew Sullivan

Babies Understand Grammar

So why don't high school students?  According to IO9.com,  Jill Lany asserts that babies understand grammar before they learn how to talk.  She doesn't answer the question about high school students, however.  She does make me feel like a rotten teacher when she asserts,

Babies are constantly looking for language clues in context and sound. My research suggests that there are some surprising clues in the sound stream that may help babies learn the meanings of words. They can distinguish different kinds of words like nouns and verbs by information in that sound stream.

If babies can distinguish between nouns and verbs, high school freshmen should be able to as well.

Lany speaks about her research in this YouTube video:

Grammar Help

This Twitter site and this webiste from the Wichita Eagle help people deal with grammatical conundrums.  So far my favorite has been noted by the Bookslut Blog.

"Affect" is usually a verb. "Effect" is usually a noun. Kryptonite affects Superman; its effects are debilitating. 

Grammar and superheroes, what could be better?