He's finished working on the Underground now. I hate it, coz he's chilled right out and don't rant nearly as much as he used to, and I do so love his rants. He does have one regular gripe that came up again over xmas, coz everyone was texting him. He hates text speak. He even hates writing 'don't' instead of 'doesn't' in the context above, but it's how he speaks so I make him do it. He really hates writing coz instead of 'because' as well, but I make him do that too COZ he's soft, and COZ of that I make him do whatever I want and he DON'T even know it! Anyway, he got tons (or tonnes if you're reading this in foreign) of texts from people. He had to save them all to answer them, coz he's the only jerk left on the planet that replies with 'big words' and even puts in the punctuation where it should go. "Thanks for a lovely day" can take him half an hour to text. He has virtually zero thumb dexterity, and he still has to poke his tongue out as he looks for keys like he does when he's colouring in. Sometimes I help him half way through a text, and that's when he does magic - and makes a phone fly...
He has this thing about words anyway, as he says people don't realise the power that they hold. I don't get that, as I control him and my world, and I don't need words, but he needs to get it off his chest, so I'll let him. He says that words started and finished every life, 'from it's a boy/girl' to 'ashes to ashes and dust to dust'. He says that they started and ended every war, and a few less emotive words being flung around, and a bit more listening to what was being communicated might have saved the killing in between.
But his main bleat now is that young people he has to deal with are being made illiterate, particularly with text speak, and being told they can use the viral excuse of Dyslexia. That gets him on one. Dyslexia, like many words, has to be properly understood and not taken for granted. The Dys bit in front of a word just means bad, as in dysfunctional. The Lex bit comes from the Greek 'lexis' for speech, or use of words. In a real Dyslexic condition, something in the brain just doesn't have the right connections, similar to mixing up the wires in an old telephone exchange. A lot of people relying on the term dyslexia just didn't, haven't or won't spend enough time with books to get familiar with, or fluent in, the language. They aren't thick, or even necessarily lazy, just not bothered, and they should be honest about it.
He gets pissed off when people claim to be 'dysnumerate' too. He has trouble with advanced maths. At Uni, they wouldn't offer him help with the calculus, algebra or trigonometry he needed unless he signed a form to be "diagnosed" as dysnumerate (or, as the patronising woman said - "numerically dyslexic"). He knew that he didn't take a blind bit of notice at school when perfectly decent teachers explained it all well. How could he? He was always gooed up over some girl. He wasn't thick or lazy either, just not bothered. He met a bloke who was genuinely "dyspraxic" once (Dysfunctional practical skills). The bloke was sent on a trowel skills course to help him to build the motor skills that would "stop him being so clumsy". Softboy found he was actually good with the trowel, but every now and then when he got either tired or wound up, his motor skills would go out of the window, and try as he might he could not lay the muck from the trowel on the bricks. It just went everywhere. He sent him back to the doctor with a diary of how it affected him, because it needed looking at. He knew an old bloke who went that way before a brain tumour was found.
So what about text speak then? As if the issues above aren't enough, you people are now ruining your only real form of communication to the wider world, your language, and it gets to him that it started with the Queens English, in the land of the Bard himself. It will be infecting the USA too by now, although they took to texting long after British youngsters. Can you imagine the legacy you will be leaving in a couple of generations from now?
2b r nt 2b dat z da ? Weva ts noblr n da mnd 2 sfr da slngs n aras v atrajus 4choon r 2 t8k rmz agnst a C v trubs n by aposin dem Nd dem..... Spin in that grave Shaky.
Or travestising Gettysburg... 4scr n 7 yrsgo r favrs brt 4f n dis cntnt a nu nashn cnCvd n lbrT n ddktd 2 da prpzshn dat wii r al =
Maybe this is treason now, but do you think the young princes will accept it later?.... Gd sv r grshs qn gd sv r nbl qn gd sv r qn snd hr victrus hpy n glrys lng 2 rayn ovr s gd sv r qn
It all comes down to the other mistaken belief in quotes that he hates. "Practice makes perfect". No it doesn't. It makes you very good at what you practice. Garbage in, garbage out. He's had grown men leave notes in site diaries that are written in txt spk. Communication is what makes you people supposedly higher than other animals. You claim it's reason, but reasoning is done in words. It's discussed in words. If your god had meant you to talk in txt spk, don't you think he'd have added that langwj to all the others he created when you screwed up on the planning permission on the Tower of Babel project?
What about the language of love? "Lv u lots X" doesn't come across as well as "I love you so much for all you are, and all you do" does it. "Wnkr!" is a bit harsher than "I really wish you hadn't done that. "WTF??" Isn't really a credible alternative to "I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand, can you explain that to me please?" is it?
Look, what me and Softboy are saying, is that if you have so little respect for your own languages and written legacies, you may just as well start talking cat. It's quicker, simpler, and easier to text than any human language, and it doesn't leave any doubt as to the meaning.
Prrp is "hello". Phtt! is "piss off". Raooow!! is "you've really pissed me off". OW!! is "Dat fkn cat js dg is clws n my nakrs!" It works dunnit? I knew we'd get you there in the end. I'll let him keep ranting, but for me yr txt spk z al gud cz ur slwly Bcmn catz.
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