The subtext of lolspeak

Re “OMG, KMN before my head asplodes,” Opinion, May 13

Mary Loesnikova’s Op-Ed article, while trying to distract the reader by once again blaming popular culture for young people’s writing illiteracy, actually diagnoses the problem in the final paragraph. It is teachers, parents and tutors who need to correct students who try to use “text-speak” and emoticons in school assignments. Students need to be told that such shorthand doesn’t belong in assignments and that if students continue to use it, there will be consequences.

It’s a sad statement that a tutor, who is supposed to be helping these students get their points across properly, throws up her hands and blames popular culture instead of dealing with students to correct the problem.

Veronica Grimaldi

Costa Mesa

While it may be fashionable to accuse younger generations of ignorance, this savagery is particularly flawed with regard to “lolspeak”: Texting inherits its improvisational and dynamic understanding of language from the grand champion of the English language, William Shakespeare.

According to author Bill Bryson, of the 14 words we have that were written in Shakespeare’s own hand, 12 make up six signatures, none of which are spelled the same, and none of which are spelled “William Shakespeare.”

Perhaps what a person writes is more important than how a person spells.

Joel Rogness

Minneapolis

The writer is an English teacher.