There are many stories about younger people who don’t know how to write properly in the business world or even on their resumes.

I have personally seen many abysmal writing examples from people with 4 year and MBA degrees.

Here is an article that I think you will enjoy:

Nearing ‘the claps of civilization’
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/04/25/INGIL68MT61.DTL

So when my son refers to “Trees” he’s not stupid enough to think I won’t figure out he means “pot” and when my niece (Honors, AP, blah, blah, blah) sends e-mail with no punctuation and filled with spelling errors I don’t believe she is lazy just less concerned with something I find important and she does not.

Either way the meaning was achieved (The guy didn’t thing Family Guy was funny, My kid is smoking pot and my niece wants more money) everything else is just Shakespeare. :)

-Joe

Agnotology, formerly agnatology, is a neologism for the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. The term was coined by Robert N. Proctor,[1][2] a Stanford University professor specializing in the history of science and technology.[3] Its name derives from the Greek word ???????, agno-sis, “not knowing”; and -?????, -logia.[4] More generally, the term also highlights the increasingly common condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before.

The problem with this is like others have said…it becomes “the lowest common denominator.” The only way to combat this is to firmly correct and/or ignore those that use it…”Speak/type correctly or be ignored.”

if you use the internet frequently and you stay on tab with things, you notice that you are more intelligent than those who rarely/never get online…

I understand the use of this shorthand on cellphones, between the length limitations and the poor input method. Neither of these handicaps apply to Web forums or blog comments. It suggests to me that such folk are more eager to get their words in than to say something that adds substance to the conversation.

Actually I was a bit over cynical on this. I don’t actually think we are devolving, but standards are dropping too much I think.

My girfriends little brother writes like that on the net all the time and he’s as smart as anybody else.

I just don’t see why peopel have to talk like this, I’m not into the whole respect thing, but this is getting a bit out of hand. And I mean the net is NOT a cellphone, you don’t type messages like you were using a cellphone, this is not an excuse.

I agree, it’s probably just the anonymity, but still…

i’m not sure how to say that in “internet shorthand”

what is devolving are the amount of people who have learned to type.

what we have here is a lack of communication. the internet has made it possible for non typers to emerge.

the horror.

As with most things there’s a time and a place.

The web certainly hasn’t made us devolve, I will try my hands and many things now with the help of google, things I wouldn’t have dreamed about ten years ago when I was n00b ;)

Looked cleaner in early years but the more people online the more it is like real world.

As to the writing in texting shorthand, the problem is that this is how many people write all the time. I’ve read some stories where young people get into business, try to write like that and get slapped upside the head.

But maybe we are moving to a world like the movie Idiocracy?