Baseless Complaints About Young People, Part 1: Writing

For as long as there have been young people, there have been old people who do not like them. Sometimes the old people sort of have a point—like maybe they're wondering why Lil' Wayne keeps rapping about Martians—but usually the complaints just range from weird alarmism to flat-out making stuff up.

One particular complaint goes something like this: "Kids never write anymore, and when they do, they do it wrong, 'cause of all their My-Spaces and Texto-Phones! Back in my day, we treated writing with respect!"

Every part of this is wrong.

First of all, if you count texting and anything you do on a computer, young people today write far more than previous generations did. Of course, to anybody making this complaint, the internet is a terrifying mystery, and cell phones are distasteful and threatening, because of all that vile sexting they keep hearing about. (They're not entirely certain what it is, but they're pretty sure it's bad, and that young people are behind it.)

Then there's the claim that anybody who uses internet/text shorthand is going to forget what words are, and will start dropping "u" and "omg" into research papers. This is exactly as sensible as assuming that people everywhere inadvertently swear at their mothers. Just because something is part of your vocabulary doesn't mean you'll thoughtlessly blurt it out like you have no idea where you are.

Finally, there's this argument that writing used to be proper and pure, until everyone broke it with all their rofling, and now English is dead and ruined. Well, here are some excerpts from correspondence between literary masters Ezra Pound and E. E. Cummings, all from the '30s and '40s. These revered scholars basically just rambled about whatever they felt like, and that's in addition to being pointlessly goofy with spelling, grammar, and punctuation:

"An dont fergit to write to the Superintendent fer permission to get IN. do it now
-EzP"

"There pts of unexpctd artect
staid of course not paisant furious"

"I just bought a pair of shoes & a borsalino"

"I like getting
letters"

That last one is the entire letter, by the way.

It's a pretty safe bet that anyone complaining about the common use of language would find both Pound and Cummings unbearable today.

Related Post: Teen Sends Text Message; World Ends