Text Talk Review

Texting has been a huge part of human communication since not long after the SMS was invented however it gets a lot of stick (mostly form the older generation’ about its apparent ‘killing’ of the English language; being described as “snot-talk” & “Unimaginative, bleak, bald, sad shorthand drab shrinktalk” according to John Sutherland. It has also been mentioned that it is “doing to our language as Genghis Khan did to his neighbours 800 years ago” by John Humphrys.

This is not the only criticism of text talk however, as most text talk is blamed on teenagers, being called “SMS vandals” by John Humphrys. However, text talk is not disliked by all; in fact it is very popular. The connotations between teenagers and text talk is untrue however, as certain abbreviations were added to the Oxford English Dictionary almost 200 years ago. ‘Cos’ the abbreviation of ‘because’ was added in 1828 and ‘wot’ from 1829. David Crystal mentions that “Many [abbreviations] can be found in literary dialect representations, such as by Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Walter Scott, DH Lawrence, or Alan Bleasdale ("Gissa job!")”. To me, this shows that if literary legends could use a primitive sort of ‘text talk’ in their writing then it is definitely not ‘killing’ the English language. Personally I can argue against the accusation of teenager ruining the English language as I personally, at 16 years old, text with barely any text talk apart from the odd missed capital or punctuation.

David Crystals’ “2B or not 2B?” from July 2008 presents the idea of text talk from a neutral perspective which sheds the true light of how text talk has been going on for years and it is not just an aggressive assault on the standard English language created by those troublesome teens. It shows that even when messages were sent via telegraph people ‘double-decked’ words such as MumDad or ComeQuick as the writers of messages were charged per word. It even points out that Anglo-Saxon scribes used quicker ways to write (although not quite text talk) such as '&' instead of 'and'.

Personally I think the accusations that text talk devised by teenagers is killing the English language and I argue that the English language is infinitely changing and adaptable, the world (including the Oxford English Dictionary) is just keeping up with the times. You should too.

The Guardian 'Twitter' Article

theguardian 

Technology Blog

The Big Twitter Take Over

Is Twitter taking over as the king of the social networks?

 
Sam Lammond





theguardian.co.uk, 18/10/2013, 10:27 GMT



  
 Twitter Logo, Credit: www.prconversations.com

By now, almost everyone has heard of the social networking giant 'Twitter'. But how big exactly is Twitter? The statistics are incredibly surprising.

Created in March 2006 by  Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass and launched in July 2006 Twitter is a lot younger than a lot of it's rivals (Facebook, MySpace etc.) however, this has not deterred it from overtaking slightly older social networking sites such as bebo in terms of active users.

Although Twitter may be a long way off overtaking Facebook in terms of active users (Facebook has 1.15B active users, whereas Twitter has a mere 190 million) it is catching up slowly but surely with 135,000 new users daily.

So, Twitter may not be the 'king of the social networks' just yet, but is it only a matter of time?

Bibliography

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/10/09/60-sensational-social-media-facts-and-statistics-on-twitter-in-2013/

http://www.prconversations.com/index.php/2011/08/using-twitter-for-pr-events/

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

 


   

Entertaining Travel Writing (Fictional)

An hour passes - or maybe 2. The hot sand crunching under my heavy boots as I trudge slowly but surely through the Taklamakan. As the hot air fills my lungs my mouth gets dryer and my eye lids grow heavier. I had been walking for what I thought had been 2 days and the lack of sleep and supplies was finally getting to me.

I had been broken up from my group the day before & I decided that the safest bet of leaving the 'Sea of Death' safely was to head for the silk road and look for one of the oasis towns along it. If I was to make it to a town before night I would have to move quickly and without stopping, as the Taklamakan is known for having cold nights even during summertime. This was looking less possible every passing minute.

I traipsed on through the desert. The rolling sand dunes seemed to go on forever but I didn't stop, I had been following my compass to where I thought the silk road would be as I had no map and no guide. The unforgiving conditions were taking their toll on my body and mind, I walked on ignoring mirages and fatigue along the way.

As I hesitantly edged my way down a large dune I spotted moving dots on the horizon. With new found enthusiasm I walked on much faster than before, determined to get to the path or even catch up with the apparent travellers I could barely see. After walking for what felt like hours I finally made it to the dusty trail I had spotted the travellers on earlier and I looked along the path in the direction they were walking. I didn't know what to think when I saw it, it took me a few seconds to clear my mind and think. I had seen this place before but only in pictures. The Chinese city of Kashgar. How could I have been so close to Kashgar Prefecture and not known? Elated I made my way to the city, where I could finally find out what had happened to my crew and return home.

Persuasive Travel Writing (Upper Class Airline) (Short)

Here at Lammond Travel, we don't cut corners. We take the utmost care in ensuring that our customers get to their destination and enjoy the journey. From the moment of booking your flight we here at Lammond Travel want you to have the easiest and most relaxing experience possible. Everything from the food to the entertainment on our flights is the best quality service an airline can produce - and it's served with a smile.

With a menu of original recipes carefully perfected and served by our teams of professionally trained chefs and an on-flight entertainment service provided by netflix you will never be bored or hungry, and when paired with our unique reclining bed-seats this is the ultimate flying experience and for far cheaper than the average airlines first class tickets.

There's a reason Lammond Travel has been in the top 10 airlines for 6 years running and that reason is quality.

Short Geoffrey Monologue

Geoffrey is a vicar - he is pompous but good looking and dedicated to the church. It is evening and he is eating dinner.

Despite Mr Medlicott being away I felt my sermon went down well this morning,a lthough it usually does. Once again my wife turned up late and once again I chose to ignore it, however it is beginning to become embarrassing. Apart from those two hiccups my sermon and lesson went well, and there was an impressive turnout from the collection plate.

After we came back from the sermon we both went to the kitchen and I sat dwon whilst Susan cooked me some, how do I put this, 'interesting' chicken wings. To break the awkward tension I piped up with 'That went down well. She replied "the chicken wings?" (I hope she was joking). "My sermon. I felt it hit the nail on the head'. I placed my hand on top of hers, hoping that she would decide to act like a wife for once but, of course, no such luck.

Overview of English Language Lessons (9/9/13 - 13/9/13)

Monday 9th:

On Monday we brushed up on word and sentence level grammar. To make sure all of the grammar was going in we had to make a booklet full of everything we had been taught that lesson but make it suitable for a Year 6.

Wednesday 11th:

A lot of writing about phrases and sentence structure. Added something about sentence structure to the grammar booklet for Year 6's. After this we were given a sheet with a small menu and we had to deconstruct & annotate the menu, focusing on sentence structure and grammar.

Thursday 12th:

We were given back the same sheet as the previous day however there was another passage of writing on the bottom half of the sheet named 'eggstravaganza'. The passage was an Easter egg advertisement from Sainsbury's and we discussed and annotated it. After this the class had to write an analysis of the passage. We then were taught about lexis and semantics for the rest of the lesson. As homework we were told to write out an overview of the lessons we had that week, which is what I've just done.

 

Sam Lammond Obituary

Sam Lammond, who has died aged 33, became one of the World's best-known and popular skateboarders, mainly through his long running presence in MTV's 'Skateboarding Calamities' and various other Thrasher Skateboarding Magazine gems; he also became famous for catching the very first sasquatch at the age of 32.
Ever enthusiastic and cheerful, the incredibly talented Lammond would get up on stage infront of audiences of up to a million people and present to them his choices of the 25 most ridiculous, funny or just painful skateboarding mishaps and tumbles that had occurred throughout the year and allowed the viewers at home to vote on which was the best. The winner was granted a prize fund of £100,000 and was interviewed on Lammonds' radio talk show the following week.
To this, as to all of his broadcasting and sasquatch hunting work, Lammond brought huge global appeal, energy and endless reserves of enthusiasm, albeit not-so-well contained. His television credits ranged from the sedate Christmas with Sam Lammond on BBC Three to guest appearances on shows such as The Simpsons and Late Night Sasquatch Hunting.
In Thrasher Magazine, Lammond was the author of many great articles such as the weekly Skateboarding Horoscopes and Skateboarder of the Month. In his later years at the magazine he interviewed people such as Chris Cole, Manny Puig and Luan Oliveira. He was a wise investor of his earnings: he owned a mansion in Los Angeles and worked on cars in his spare time.
Samuel Jacob Lammond was born on March 7th 1997 in Cheltenham, the son of a Welsh TV cameraman. His mother worked part time at the father's business and his sister was just a year and a half older than him.
Educated at St Brendans College and KLB school, Sam got his first job as his father's assistant part time, but later developed his skills as a writer by writing extreme sports magazine articles for a small magazine named Aftershock. In 2015, at the age of 18, Sam was interviewed on The One Show for his articles. This brought him to the attention of Thrasher Skateboard Magazine.
He wrote his first article for Thrasher that year named 'Skateboarding Calamities'. Every week he would write an article including 2 videos and readers would vote for the best one. He did this up until the age of 25, when MTV approached him and offered him an annual show based on his 'Skateboarding Calamities' article.
He carried on doing his article and show when, in 2029 aged 32, Sam was hunting in the woods with his close friend Dan and spotted the sought-after urban myth - the sasquatch. This was the last big impact Sam Lammond was to have in the world, meeting his unfortunate early fate at the young age of 33.
Samuel Jacob Lammond, born March 7th 1997, Died September 6th 2030.
(This isn't a serious obituary and i'm not really this full of myself)

Havisham (poem)

I chose "Havisham" as my piece of writing because I like pretty much everything about it. The interesting wording, the weird sentence structure and how she portrays the characters emotional breakdown and torment make the poem different from any other. 

The language used in the poem is unique and interesting. Every sentence has purpose and tells a huge part of the story, and the abnormal sentence structure used by Carol Ann Duffy just adds effect to her choice of wording. An example of the language used in the poem is the very first sentence "Beloved sweetheart bastard". The final word is a direct contradiction of the first and second, this shows the reader how twisted and confused Miss Havisham's emotions and thoughts are. Every sentence in the poem could be used for an example of Carol Ann Duffy's creativity in her image of Miss Havisham, however quoting and analysing every sentence would be a long and boring task.

"At the end of the second stanza, pronouns multiply wildly from 'her' and 'myself' to 'who'. It's as if her sense of self is fracturing. The pronouns run over the line break into the next stanza transforming the apparent sentence: 'myself who did this' into a question 'who did this to me?'. In other words, we think, at first, she's aware that her 'cawing' is self-inflicted. But then we realise she's actually asking 'who did this to me?'." This is a quote from an English teachers analysis of the poem. I used this passage because it explains how well Carol Ann Duffy's choice of sentence structure works and how much it can change the meanings of different parts of a poem in a way that I couldn't explain myself.