make up Scrabble words this holiday.

face it, you'll likely be subjected to game night at some point this month. it just comes with the territory of more food than you need and family members you may or may not want to see. it's about the only thing every can decide won't be overly offensive to do together. so be prepared.

--know the new words that made it into the Oxford English Dictionary this year. PS if you're playing with Merriam-Webster, you're a pansy. break out the big book.

--be hip with the youngsters. modify the rules a bit and bring out the lingo. brush up using Urban Dictionary, otherwise known as the directory for word vomit (check the page title).

--throw caution to the wind. get your Addictionary on. this is a favourite in my family. it's when you just make words up. you get to keep the word on the board if you can convince majority of players of a meaning for it.

happy holidays, Scrabulous addicts, copywriters, and wannabe English types. this one's for you.

full circle, 1 of 2: 2.0 literacy "IRL"

study 1: students say "e-text" isn't writing (CNetNews)

study 2: students use "text speak" in school work (TimesOnline)

funny thing? they're talking about the same study: Pew Internet and American Life Project. so how can, in the same study, it be found that 1) students differentiate between txting and writing, and that differentiation makes them understand the time and place for each, and, 2) that in fact that differentiation means nothing and txting is used within scholarly writing.

"What's at stake here is just the ability to express oneself in more than one register," she said. "As long as children are taught to use the standard spelling and to appreciate the difference between registers, this could even be positive."
(excerpt from Times)

yes yes, i agree. there is no trouble with being "multiliterate"--able to txt-speak and write essays also. the problem here is, why, oh why, would you ever need 'LOL' in your essay? or a smiley face? why would there be a need for this expression in academic writing which a teacher must assess and decipher??

i enjoyed this comment response: "I hope those students who do use abbreviations in their essays receive an unhappy face sticker for their incorrect use of the English language." (Farore, Melbourne, Australia)

hahaha, could you imagine? i'd have been livid to get back a frowny face sticker. what does it MEAN? B-? F? it's almost as ambiguous as "A-/B+" (i hated those with a passion). pick one! oh, the teachers' revenge.

in essence, i think the CNet article about the study got it better; it seems that students believe correct spelling/grammar is vital in the academic sphere as well as central to future success in their careers. however, that doesn't stop the error, every so often, of slipping into "native tongue" (txt speak).
[though i'd still love to know when its usage is called for... "and then atticus finch defended tom robinson at trial, showing the ewells for the liars that they are--LOL!" ?]

for your consideration: meme cats.

upon further consideration of yesterday's mourning post, i have found one place where l33t speak is acceptable. only one.

that would be the difficult yet rewarding task of perfecting the meme cat, also sometimes known as "teh cheezburger cat," the "macro cat," or the "lolcat." if you haven't seen one of these, you live under a tiny rock.

i believe that part of the allure of the meme cat is, in fact, the l33t speak and the ability to engage with the paradox of language and translation in an increasingly global space (all your base are belong to us).

and in case you were wondering, this post does have another point, too.

the importance of meme cats to mass social media and censorship. no, i'm not kidding. there's a talk from the ETech conference on it that you should read.

---

excerpt: "With web 2.0, we’ve embraced the idea that people are going to share pictures of their cats, and now we build sophisticated tools to make that easier to do. As a result, we’re creating a wealth of tech that’s extremely helpful for activists. There are twin revolutions going on - the ease of creating content and the ease of sharing it with local and global audiences.
[...]
Blocking banal content on the internet is a self-defeating proposition. It teaches people how to become dissidents - they learn to find and use anonymous proxies, which happens to be a key first step in learning how to blog anonymously. Every time you force a government to block a web 2.0 site - cutting off people’s access to cute cats - you spend political capital. Our job as online advocates is to raise that cost of censorship as high as possible."

---

a parting gift, 11 of my current favourite meme cats:
ringu cat, schroedinger's cat, staplr cat, grail cat, godmother cat, copy cat, snozberry cat, dune cat, flavor cat, stick cat, and of course, base cat.

and 2 adaptive (meaning non-feline) advertising commentaries...
network and tactics.

hook, line: oh no! make it stop! (pls! x_x)

not that i expected any better.

i'm taking flower donations to rest on the grave of the american english language. i know i'm supposed to shift with all this, but it makes me twitch to look at.

more thoughts (kthanxbi?)

tangerinetoad: Funny that texting abbreviations almost non-existent on Twitter. More reason to it than we're not in high school?

i'm not sure why this is. generally, i would argue that twitter has (currently) a different audience than the bff4evs of facebook--or at least that the ratio is in our favour. i am a text message fiend, however, even when i text i don't use abbreviations (unless i'm being sarcastic and referencing l33t-speak for ironic or other purposes).

i don't think it's a high school grad mentality... i think it's the mentality of bloggers. people who are communicating on a more public level than texting, and therefore secure better understanding by not using abbreviations.

even twitter pitches tweets as microblog updates. it's not like mass text messaging (even though it is!)--it's supposed to be like quick mini-blogs. i think that mentality is what encourages well thought out, generally well-spelled, and generally unabbreviated tweets.

i'm not sure though; do you use twitter? what do you think?
(ps i need friends. i feel like i have nothing to tweet about.)