SURELY YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS...

The New Zealand Qualification Authority has decided to allow "text speak" in this years school exams. NZQA deputy chief excecutive said credit would be given in this year's NCEA exams if the answer "clearly shows the required understanding", even if abbreviations were used.

The article goes on to state, however, that abbreviations in some exams, including English (no - really?) where good language use is expected. N.B. I commend the writer of this piece for not using that non-word, "usage".

In this age of techno madness, where there's a machine for everything and where something ridiculous like 80% of the civilized world own a mobile phone, text language can not and arguably at the core should not, be denied. It is a legitimate form of communication and anyone whose ever owned a mobile will espouse the timesaving benefits of such language.
But by jiminy, it's a brutality on English proper. Every time I receive a text from someone (which isn't that often actually - no mates remember) my grammar sensibilities scream in outrage. In fact, when I first started texting myself some years ago, I would take the extra time to apply proper grammar on general principle. But it was never going to last as I too succumbed to expedience and began writing "how r u", and "c u l8r", which when written would put one in mind of some binary code.
Text should never be used in anything other than mobile phones - ever. Now if you want to set an exam on that specific form of communication, then go right ahead. As I've said, it's a valid form of communication for the medium but to apply such a practice to anything other than a phone is just...well, lazy. And worse still, to apply it in examinations is verging on a violation of a teachers duty of care almost. There is no justification for it.

And speaking of teachers...in Victoria, 40 teachers were given 11 words to spell. Not one of them got them all right, and one of them, as hard as it may be to believe, didn't get any of the words right. Two of the teachers got only two of the eleven right. The only example given was the word subterranean which isn't actually that hard when considering some of the words that could have been used.
Five teachers correctly spelt 10 words, putting them on par with an average 14 year old.
Overall, 22 teachers spelt subterranean wrong, 17 couldn't manage embarrassing or miscellaneous and 16 had trouble with adolescence. Not VERY difficult words, I would suggest.

So all in all, the language seems to be under attack from a society that no longer values dignity in writing. A society that embraces the vulgar, that in the name of results chooses to lower pass standards instead of raising teaching standards.

But hey, maybe I don't know nuffin. Hav a good day; c u l8r.