let's have a discussion here! do the internet, emails, text messages, et al. promote illiteracy?

the other day was complaining to me about an email he got from someone. the writer of the email works in the educational system so it got david even more fired up than it might have.

the email was written in fragmented sentences. david hates the shorthand approach, which he assumes is used to save time when responding to somebody. david composes his emails like letters so it bothers him to see the english language butchered. he loves the language that much.

he's also chided me about how i use the & symbol instead of the word and. i don't know when i got into that habit, but it became second nature to me somewhere along the dusty road. i'm going to stop that forthwith.

yeah, i write in lower cases too. that's another thing and i don't know where it came from. it's part of my typing rhythm now so i'm going to try to stop it.

in case you think david is being too hard on me, let it be known that i tease him for his overuse of elipses! ... know what i mean...i mean, seriously...

but is any of this the fault of modern technologly or just down to the quirks of each of us, the stupid primates who can't get a grip on using language the way it meant to be used?

is it a bit of both? our imprecise use of the language plus the shorthand and all the lol's and lmao's and stuff like that may just be a bad combo. i mean, "combination!"

whaddya think, my homies?