The Top 40

Fiennes misses the point: Brevity is the soul of Twit.

Language is in the proverbial eye of the beholder. A point can be made in 140 characters of less, profoundly so when it reaches thousands or millions or more. What is being tweeted? Data, statements or links. The value of the first two will depend on the context and relevance but links to poetry, prose, art, documents, archives, social events can change the world, assuming we have the population to appreciate it. It can change the life of the individual. Ralph is like the OWS crowd, protesting the wrong damned building.

I like twitter because it forces me to say what I have to say in 140 characters or less. I usually post something to tumblr and then it posts automatically to facebook and twitter, without me having to go to either site. But when I do want to say something to someone specifically, I will use twitter to say it. It's a challenge, but it's also a useful tool. One of the funniest twitters is Shit My Dad Says. Talk about Brevity being the soul of twit!

Will be sure to follow you Jewel and plunder your list! I need some lightheartedness, ASAP. We could all use more of that right about now.

I could agree with you much much more, and I will.

He's right, it has. So has text.

If one attempts to say something profound in 140 characters, I doubt there is anything of value said.

But Christopher, it's not texting or Twitter that has erroded language. I taught high school long before these and my kids couldn't write complete sentences. It's the public schools that has eroded language. If anything, texting and Twitter are just new means of communicating, like Morse Code or shorthand, but it is the person's interest that determines what is at the end of the Tweet. In my experience, my kids have sharpened their spelling skills because we never learned much text shorthand. Twitter is necessarily coded to fit the limit of characters. I acquire far more info via Twitter and my family and I accomplish a lot more via texting. They both have their risks and I'd even concede that attention deficite may be a very real side effect, but Ralph is barking up the wrong tree. It's public schools and families which have failed language. The erosion of tradition and complete sentences in general. Rap music is more to blame than Twitter but he'd never admit that. I heard a local lawyer describe how his childhood steeped in King James Bible readings taught him to appreciate language (it's a Southern thing) and I say that is where it begins, at home, in the traditions of the family and commmunity. Twitter and/or texting, social networking has the potential to enhance, not erode language when the appreciation for formal reading is instilled at an early age. Everyone has something to say and says it, yes, he's right about that, but that we can also blame on pop-culture and public school predating this technology. The natural narcissim of our young is not only encouraged in public schools and liberal universities but perfected, honed and utilized by the left. And narcissim is the problem, not technology.

*eroded (can't blame twitter for that one)

I agree that the school system doesn't help, but the slang and crunched spelling that texting and tweeting requires infects all of their language and its considered "cool" so they love it.

Spanish teacher co-worker, pre-twitter, declared that the problem with her students was not that Spanish was difficult but that her students lacked a foundation in English as a foundation to building an understanding of Spanish. I have my own kids now and I really haven't seen it affect their love for literature, but then again, we homeschool. I do notice their peers use social networking for absolutely no worthwhile reason except to see and be seen and, invariably, the biggest, most obnoxious, pointless exhibitions seem to win the greatest response. Narcissism.

RedCarolina, Spanish teacher co-worker, pre-twitter, declared that the problem with her students was not that Spanish was difficult but that her students lacked a foundation in English as a foundation to building an understanding of Spanish.

It's not the foundation in English, but a lack of having to study Latin. In HS in the '50's we had to take 4 years of Latin and translate parts of the great writers.
Glad I didn't take Attic Greek.

I only took up the study of Latin in my thirties, almost 20 years ago. My love for the language was a big influence on one of my daughters, who took four years of it in high school. She still loves to get out her Latin books. But it is true, that if you have a good grasp of English grammar, you will do well in the study of any foreign language.

Gonna have to side with Mr. Fiennes on this one.

Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad. Here we are arguing about how our society needs to be re-made, or if it needs re-making, for something called "the economy" to do well in the next few days or over the next hundred years. And we are to do this arguing in 140 characters or less? No wonder it's devolved into a loud, unenlightening, silly, circular argument.

(Have no idea if the above is