Thursday, September 19, 2002


Interesting article on the rise of L33T (elite) speak in teenagers, as SMS spreads through the cell-phone using public like syphilis in a whorehouse.

Nu Shortcuts in School R 2 Much 4 Teachers

It isn't my generation, but I find the use of the abbreviations amusing and, occasionally, edifying. Like a lot of jargon a great deal is pretty useless, and I love the teacher's observation that "wuz" doesn't even save any letters...so why not spell it correctly?

I was impressed with how most of the instructors had a very open mind about the new vocabulary, and were finding ways of using the students reliance on it as a foothold into creative thinking. At the same time they are clear--if you are making smiley-faces to replace critical thinking, you are going to lose out big-time when you try to take your thoughts out into the world.

Slashdot had a pretty vigorous debate on all the pros and cons, over here. The signal/noise ratio is better than usual, especially with the filters set to three or higher. In the spirit of the article, i won't clarify what that means...u cn c it uself.