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"L33T" Speak Invades Schools
Masem writes "NYTimes reports on how common chat room/IM shortcuts (such as 'u' for you, 'r' for are, etc) are creeping into the classroom and homework assignments from those teenage kids that spend a significant amount of time in chat programs. This is giving the teachers headaches in trying to grade the assignments, much less understand them because of the techno-generation gap, and to try to prevent further abuse of the language, have begun penalizing students for using the net slang. Students sometimes don't even realize they use the chat room shorthand until it's pointed out to them, because that method of chatting has become second nature to them."
Why is it that so-called "teachers" are unable (or unwilling) to learn new modes of speech? You would think that by learning to understand AOL-style chat text, that teacher would set an example for students: be adaptive. After all, isn't it better to understand multiple speech/text modes, instead of helplessly clinging to antiquated modes that have diminishing relevance in today's world?
I think most teachers are lazy idiots, and this story only reinforced that opinion.
No, you killed thousands and thousand of Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Palestinian men, women and children. You deserved the September 11th 2001 attacks. You deserve more.