March 28, 2024
Audio Features
Bernstein With a Twist
This is a weekly program with commentary on current issues.
Episode
Parents tell me their kids have invented a language that older folks do not comprehend. They've perfected a form of shorthand, or short thumb, to dash off cryptic messages on their laptops and cell phones.

Good for them. My generation invented the twist.

But it just burns me to learn, compliments of a Pew Research Center report, that 40 percent of 12-to-17 year-olds allow this inane chat lingo, LOL, ROFL, BFF, to creep into their school essays and homework.

Granted, I'm a geezer. But this geezer's going to make a stand.

LOL (laughing out loud), ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) and BFF (best friends forever) should be confined to those informal, cotton-candy exchanges we've come to know as "chat." They must be barred from contaminating the time-honored sentence.

It's not as if I'm some snooty purist. I just happen to respect the English language, 24/7.
Episode Date: June 27, 2008
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