Effects of Social Networking Sites on English Usage and Grammar

 

In this present generation, majority of us, either young or old, use social networking sites almost every day as pastimes and communicating tools. I think we are all aware that these sites really affect people’s English usage and grammar. These are where jejemons, bekimons, conyos, and other unknown language users originate from.

In my daily use of these sites, I observe that users of social networking sites, including me, are fond of using the “chat language”. This wrong usage of the English language on these sites affects most of the people’s spelling and grammar, and worse, way of talking as well. We think that the languages used by other people on these sites are correct, that is why, we unconsciously use them also.

We use abbreviations, acronyms, word or language combinations, and emoticons.

Another thing I notice is that we tend not to use apostrophes, punctuation marks, and capitalization.

The improper uses of the words your and you’re, its and it’s, and their and there are also dominant grammar mistakes online.

Moreover, the use of advance happy birthday instead of happy birthday in advance is also one of the things I encounter the most.

I agree on what a journalist once said, “Social networking has had a huge impact on the way people write, and it has all been negative.” But I am not saying that we must stop using social networking sites. (The whole world will hate me if I say so.) What we shall do is stop being in “vogue”. I know not one of us wants to be a laughing-stock, so, we shall, every time and everywhere, use Standard English. This will surely help us not to get humiliated by other people and likewise, to ourselves.

(images from www.google.com)

The Perfect Tenses

This blog post is about my experience in learning English. I have a private blog on one blogging site and I remember the first time I tried to make a post on my blog using English. One reason I started blogging in English is because I want to become a fluent speaker. It was difficult since English is not my first language. I usually get confused particularly on how to use the perfect tense. I always tend to put have or had before the verb because it sounds good to my ears not knowing I am not using the tenses properly. I was determined to improve my knowledge on perfect tenses so I started reading articles and forums on the internet about those topics. I also reviewed my lecture notes on our English subject in high school and I must say that those readings helped me a lot. There are proper usages for each perfect tense. For example, the past perfect tense expresses a past action before another past action. The key word I use for this tense is past in the past so that it will be easier for me to remember it. On the other hand, the present perfect tense and the future perfect tense have different rules for their usage. The present perfect tense cannot be used with specific time. Lastly, the future perfect tense is used to express an action that will have been completed before a future action. Learning English is easy if one studies every topic by heart. There is always something around everyone that could help in learning English.

Write Away!