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Blogs by Marie Wadsworth
Writing Becoming a Lost Art? 5/16/2007 7:12:36 PM
This is my first blog in a long, long while. I felt compelled to write this because I have a feeling that writing is indeed becoming a lost art. Often the word "writing" conjures up groans and feelings of dread for many people.
That's understandable.
I would argue that there are very few people, and not necessarily those who pursue the literary arts as a profession or hobby, who really know how to write.
There aren't really any hard or fast rules when it comes to how you write, even though we do have rules when it comes to grammar and spelling, and maybe that's why there's such a problem with the way we write on the Internet, in e-mail and elsewhere.
My case in point is the use of acroynms that no one seems to know the meaning of that are frequently seen used in e-mails or Internet chats. For example, on many Internet chats and e-mails, I see the use of acroynms, tendency to use symbols instead writing it out (e.g., 4 U), incomplete or poorly constructed sentences, regular misspelling, and so on.
I typically see unknown acroynms such as MBF (My Best Friend), etc., and not many people, unless you're an insider, knows what they mean. For some it's an embarassment to ask what these acroynms stand for. The worst offenders of the acroynm usage is the military and those in education.
I understand that the Internet seems to be a place where more loose and conversational styles of writing are used, but what example are we setting or standards are we teaching to our youngsters by not writing well online?
In my opinion, the only way to learn how to write is to practice it. So why don't we practice it correctly, even if what we're writing is only posted online?
I'm not saying that we write like we're turning a paper for our English professor online or in e-mail, but I think we can employ a little bit better writing practices in e-mail and online.
