The status of the English language is at stake. Grammar and spelling is threatened by SMS or chat messages. Short abbreviated messages sent on SMS have become popular slang for today’s generation. Teenagers always text peers in a decoded language that their parents can’t understand. This prevents their parents from understanding what they say just in case they lay their hands on the phones. This code language is only understood by the sender and the receiver who will understand content. With technology at its peak today, everyone owns a mobile phone even teenagers and toddlers. An SMS being one of the most effective communication mediums in the world, it’s embraced by many. Its characters (number of words) are limited thus people have to abbreviate their words. For instance; such a message “Plz dt 4gt 2 tl hr abt d trp 2moro, gdnt,” literally means, ‘Please don’t forget to tell her about the trip tomorrow, good night.’ The constant typing of such spellings tends to encode in one’s brain thus ends up using the same kind of word in formal documents. This has affected grammar and spelling. At times when students are over exposed to this kind of typing, they process the language in their brains and they end up using it in the exams—something that affects their marks. It greatly affects punctuation and sentence construction. Students are regularly dropping prepositions, omitting punctuation and abbreviating words. Students should be encouraged to write SMS’s with the right spellings and grammar if we are to save the language. Dorau20@yahoo.co.uk
