Folks -- I think that we can really get too high on our mixed-metaphor horse on this issue. The biggest issue of all is whether we have a semi-literate student, or someone who knows proper grammar but uses the jargon and syntax of teen culture inappropriately. There are lots of jargons in the world: Talcott Parsonian sociology; baseball; yacht racing; short order cooks. It is of course appropriate to know where you are and to use the appropriate jargon: the Waldorf Astoria is no place to order "shit on a shingle" or "one-eyed Annie." One does not use Parsonian syntax when addressing the National Pig Knuckles and Beer Rally, and constant reference to tacking and yawling may mark you as arrogant at the Iowa Farm Wives Association. Many people from ethnic communities have had to learn that you need to know patois to get along back home, but a different language at Harvard Law School. Similarly, to me, some of this problem may be a child in the process of growing up who hasn't learned that Prof. Smith is not the person with whom to use IM language. Anyway, wasn't it this list that once was loaded with fad items like IMHO, smiley faces :-) and some others that I never figured out?
Cheers from those of us at quarter schools who still have three weeks to go!
Marty
Martin D. Schwartz
Professor of Sociology
Ohio University
119 Bentley Annex
Athens, OH 45701
740.593.1366 (voice)
740.593.1365 (fax)
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