On spelling

Hava yaa avar plaaed tha changa all vawals gama? Ni? Ot’s voro ooso. Jest chenge ell the vewels en e sentence te jest ene – leke e. Ur u. Ir i. Yoy gyt thy ydyy.*


Correct spelling and proper use of language makes reading all the much easier. Don’t get me wrong, I am no expert. Not just because of the second language thing – I make my share of both spelling- and grammar errors in Norwegian too (perhaps more so recently, seeing as all my writing tends to be in English). But at least I try. I purposely avoid simplifications even in text messages or on Facebook – you won’t find me writing “C U 2morrow” anytime soon (is that even what they write? “morrow” looks very long ãnd proper for SMS-lingo…). It takes so little effort to spend those extra seconds typing the whole thing, and it makes reading a lot easier.

I’m not saying that your writing is bad if you do result to short cuts like the above. By all means, I am all for believing that one person can master different styles of writing. For instance, there is a considerable difference between how I write my thesis and how I write my blog (fortunately). Still, I do notice that the two occasionally influence each other. Usually, it’s my thesis influencing my blog and not the other way around (again, fortunately – for instance my rapid use of parentheses and italics in my blog would be absolutely frowned upon academically). If I have spent considerable amounts on time writing serious, depressing, hard-core academic skullduggery (or so it sometimes feel), I can often see that my blog either takes on a more serious tone than usual; or the complete opposite. Sometimes it seems as though my creativity bubbles over from having been constrained for too long.

But I digress (see what I mean – I’m really not cut out to having to stick to one topic at the time…).

Even if there probably are some people who are able to interchange proper spelling and SMS-lingo perfectly, I have no doubt that for most of us this is not the case. Generally, we are too easily influenced. Therefore, I would highly appreciate if people would use complete. Sentences. Even if. They are only. Posting on Facebook. Please?

Ynd yf yyy cyn’t dy thyt, Y wyyld hyghly ypprycyyty yf yyy dydn’t bythyr my wyth yyyr byll shyt…**


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


*Have you ever played the change all vowels game? No? It’s very easy. Just change all the vowels in a sentence to just one – like e. Or u. Or y (*snort*). You get the idea (I hope – if not, this translation was made for your convenience).

**I’ll let you all figure this one out yourselves…