Is it just me or does this feel like the longest summer ever? The kids finished school on June 25 and as I write they still have three weeks of vacation left to go. It’s going to be a shock to everyone’s system when they have to get back to early-starts, packing lunches and homework. One of the hardest things I think will be writing; when they’re not at school kids don’t have much call for pen and paper. In fact, did you know that cursive writing isn’t even taught at school anymore?
It seems a shame to me. But maybe I’m old-fashioned. I like to write (obviously), I do still scrawl notes in my own legible-only-to-me handwriting. I write Christmas cards and postcards; I think being able to write is important. I can text message though too. When I first started I was always very careful to maintain high standards of punctuation and spelling. Not necessary or appropriate I discovered. People don’t want to ask ‘how u doin’ and get the reply ‘very well thank you’. ‘Gr8’ is sufficient or even just : )
It’s a slippery business language. Context is everything. I know how important correct grammar and punctuation are to Seaside‘s readers because you frequently write (or email) in and tell us where we’ve got it wrong. A forgotten comma or misused apostrophe are not the end of the world, they’re usually just overlooked in the large volume of words we read and read again. What’s sad is when a mistake spoils the reader’s ability to understand. Writing so bad that it gets in the way; ideas and arguments obscured by clumsy syntax or misspellings where you can only guess at what’s being attempted.
After last month’s issue a reader got in touch to let us know that ‘goats have kids, humans have children.’ He’s right of course. But on the other hand we’re not writing a science paper or presenting legal documents and the informal use of kid as a young person has been around for a long time. It’s a balancing act, we have to allow language to adapt to suit our need for it, yet remember that its primary role is as a tool of communication and is therefore useless if what we write doesn’t convey to another person what we mean.
I’m quite happy to see the development of emojis to express a little snapshot of our feelings with one simple picture. I like clever shortening of words when texting; it’s efficient and fun. But I don’t want to lose our rich and dynamic written language because of these things. We all know you have to use something or you’ll lose it; so keep writing in and keep your kids writing.
