its wurse than u think…

It’s been almost ten years since I started teaching general education classes. And I like to think that my expectations are fairly realistic. I expect that students should come to class. I expect that they should do the work. I expect that they should be able to write. They have been accepted to the University, after all, and the logical assumption is that they’ve completed high school. Following this logic, there are certain things that I assume are taught in high school classes that…well…aren’t.

At the risk of sounding like my grandfather, who used to love what I call the “uphill-in-the-snow-both-ways” stories about what things were like when He Was My Age, when I was in high school, we were taught some pretty important grammatical things. Like spelling. Conjugation. Punctuation. Capitalization. Hell, we were even taught how to write business letters, memos, and other forms of professional correspondence. Something that seems to be constant today, however, is the fact that neither my students nor myself were ever taught how to apply these skills to email.

Now in my own defense, when I was in high school, computers were rudimentary beasts, at best. In the land of the Apple 2C and the 80/86, a computer that was “online” was plugged into the wall and powered on. But in an era when the Post Office is being considered for the endangered species list, proper grammatical etiquette--especially electronic etiquette--is taking a pretty serious hit.

I understand that there’s going to be a certain amount of technological lag, as “what we should do” catches up with “what we can do”. But call me crazy, I think that an email between a student and a professor should be professional. Hell, at this point, I’d settle for legible. Unfortunately the norm seems to be something that leaves a bit to be desired. I receive emails on a daily basis that would make a former proofreader like myself run for the hills. While the misspellings and typos are bad enough, my personal pet peeve is when I receive emails that are written in "text-speak". Note to my students...I don't want to know that "u can't make it 2 class b/c u r sick" or that "u wont bee in cls 2mrw :)".

Take for example, the email I received toward the end of last semester. This email was from a student that wanted to know what he could do to pass my class. This is not an uncommon question at the end of the semester. In addition, the student, by his own admission, hadn't been to class in a while. Also, not unusual. Sadly, what was also not unusual was the fact that the email was written so poorly that I could barely read it. It was written in all one paragraph, in a chaotic mix of English and text-speak, with next to no punctuation. There were misspelled words, and enough typos to make any respectable educator reach for the nearest bottle. But what made this email memorable was the fact that this student--who I may remind you, my gentle readers, was trying to salvage his grade--misspelled his own first name.

Yeah. You heard me correctly. His. Own. Name.

After telling this story (over more than one drink), a friend of mine asked me "how did you know his name was spelled wrong? You said he never came to class." A fair question. However, the student email system that my university offers puts the student's first, middle, and last names in the message header. So either he spelled it wrong in his paperwork or typed it wrong in the email. In any case, the error was made.

Now in his defense, it could have been a typo. Gods know we're all capable of that. But honestly--is it really that hard to glance something over before you hit 'send'?

Oh yeah, in case you were wondering how I replied to that particular gem of an email? Well, after checking the gradebook and determining that it was, in fact, mathematically impossible for this student to pass my class, I told him to cut his losses and try again next semester. I never received a reply.

I'd love to tell you that this was an isolated incident. Believe me...I would. However, as of this post, I've already had another student misspell his first name in an email. I'm sure it won't be the last. So a note to all you students out there, whether you're my students or not...don't "b srprzd if i don't email u bk". Hell, I may even send them to my friends so we can "LOL @ U"!