Chat-Speak Invades the Classroom

[Grant Barrett]

I remember in the second grade I consistently used "+" in place of
"and." I don't remember how I picked it up, but it took me years to
shake, despite harangues from teachers. I suspect I learned it up from
my father who sometimes writes with what I consider remnants of his
rural roots (such as writing the T in St. Louis as a small caps letter:
the height of a normal lower case character, but otherwise the same
form as the capital).

 From the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/19/technology/circuits/19MESS.html

"EACH September Jacqueline Harding prepares a classroom presentation on
the common writing mistakes she sees in her students' work.

Ms. Harding, an eighth-grade English teacher at Viking Middle School in
Guernee, Ill., scribbles the words that have plagued generations of
schoolchildren across her whiteboard:

There. Their. They're.

Your. You're.

To. Too. Two.

Its. It's.

This September, she has added a new list: u, r, ur, b4, wuz, cuz, 2."


--
Grant Barrett
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org
Small Business Apple Macintosh Support in New York City
http://www.worldnewyork.org/