Txt shortcuts r 2 much 4 me

With school out, my son has time aplenty to update and read his Facebook page.

I check in every now and again to see who’s saying what to whom. It’s not the friends that concern me. Practically all are teens from school, church and camps he attends. And it’s not what they’re saying that makes me cringe.

Rather, it’s the way they say it: The made-up words, shortcuts, spelling errors and subject-verb disagreements stick in my craw.

Young people always ride the cusp of trends and, in this case, hip technology. Writing a sentence that says, “i went 2 C a movie last nite,” is their slang. I just want my son to know and understand the difference, that there’s a time and place for everything, including “txt spk” and instant messaging.

Studies on social networking play both sides. Some results say it doesn’t harm one’s reading and writing ability, that it doesn’t cause kids’ English skills to deteriorate. On the other hand, some literary purists and teachers claim otherwise.

Wandala Bowers, an 18-year veteran of the classroom, works at Reading to Learn, a tutorial service in Lilburn for k-12 students, college students and adults. She didn’t say text speak is ruining the English language, but she admitted the practice of such instant messaging has been “a concern” among some peers.

It occasionally crops up in schoolwork. She recalled the dismay of a social studies teacher whose students turned in projects riddled with the slang. When Bowers taught middle school language arts, she required that her students write in a daily journal. She saw a trend: Words were replaced with the shorthand of instant-messaging.

For her, the shortcuts r 2 much.

“You wouldn’t believe how much of that lingo was in the written journals,” she told me. “It also would show up on tests. If you ask a discussion question, in the answer, you see the No. 2 for “to” and the No. 4 for “for.” We’ve even seen it on posters — the texting lingo.”

I guess one could sit back and take this lightly, say it’s no big deal, just part of the evolution of language. Perhaps. Maybe I’m too crotchety because I’ve yet to join that growing circle of cool parents who have embraced the technology and correspond with their kids using the same instant-message abbreviations and deviations.

Gwinnett public schools crank up Aug. 10. When it does, Bowers suggested parents and teachers have a sit-down with young people in their care.

“They should stress that there is a proper way to express yourself in the written language,” she told me. “With computers, kids are dependent on spell-check to catch their [misspellings]. It’s called lazy. Now everybody is texting. I guess it’s a habit, and it’s becoming more and more prominent. I’d say it’s an issue.”

And that’s the message I conveyed to my son, just to be sure he understands, and he does.

In school and all other communications, I explained, please use standard English. Don’t let the tools of texting spill to schoolwork. It won’t be a happy day in the Badie house if a report or project comes home marked in red because he chose to write the way he sometimes does on Facebook.

“Txt spk” is quick. It’s easy. And it has its place — in cyberspace.

I prefer that it’s left there.

TTYL (talk 2 U L8R).

Rick Badie, an Opinion columnist, is based in Gwinnett. Reach him at rbadie@ajc.com or 770-263-3875.