I recently received some flames because I suggested that one shouldn't write their poems in chatspeak. Though it was in good taste, they didn't take it very well. No, there are no rules that a poem can not be written this way, but there are reasons that they shouldn't.
First of all, what is chatspeak?
Chatspeak is a shorter way of writing, commonly used on-line in chats or on instant messengers. Things like "luv" for "love" and "u" for "you" are used instead of proper spelling.
Who wants their writing to look like something copied from a chat-room conversation?
Some will argue that it is quicker and easier to type in chatspeak, but does it really take that much longer to spell it correctly? Nope.
The idea of most poetry - save for those personal pieces - is to share a thought or idea with other people - to have them read your poetry. Many many people have to strain their brain to read chatspeak and some will even pass up a poem written this way. You want the most reads you can get, right?
Chatspeak is associated with teenagers and informality. It's true. Poetry is an art, so shouldn't it be displayed properly and in proper English? I think so.
Would you, if you were attempting to be published, submit a poem in chatspeak? Most people wouldn't and rightly so. What publisher is going to read that, unless it somehow fits the topic of the poem?
Why then, if you wouldn't submit a chatspeak poem to a publisher do you submit it to us, your readers? That could be taken as a bit of an insult, now couldn't it?
I feel that one should do all in their power to display their poem as best they can. Chatspeak will usually take away.
It does not take much longer to spell correctly and there are only advantages.
I will grant that many people use poetry as their release, as a way to vent. I know that I do. However, though you may want to type quick, a vent can end up being one of your greatest pieces and it should be displayed so. One more thing, if one is to fall away from chatspeak they will soon find they can type faster normally.
Notes before you strangle me:
I am NOT a perfect speller. I do not expect I ever will be. I believe that there are probably SEVERAL errors in the above piece.
I do NOT think that chatspeak makes you immature or stupid.
I HAVE read many great poems written in chatspeak.
Chatspeak takes away from your poetry.
Add a comment
Comments
1 - 19 of 19
-
I agree with you on the use (non-use) of chatspeak. it has it's place, but not in a poem, that's my opinion. I think we should make our poetry as perfect as we can and go back, make corrections, use real words. True, we all make mistakes and I for one appreciate it immensley when someone points out a mistake I've made. I WANT it to be right
Good job with this, Frodofan
Dee
-
I agree absolutely with everything you say here. The only reason that I can think of to write a poem in chatspeak, is if somehow the poem itself is about instant messaging. Or somehow captures the feel of what one might say in a chat. There is no art in simply spelling things wrong for the reason things are spelled wrong in chat speak. The reader of a preexisting poem need not WAIT to see what the poet writes. A reader in a CHAT is sitting and waiting for the writer to complete their sentence, so when someone who doesn't have actual typing skills sits down, they degrade into chat speak rather than type complete words. But this is NOT art, this is incompetence. poor typing skills. This is rushing. This is not a choice.
The dialect chosen is part of the message of a poem. And a good poem could use chatspeak if that was part of the message. Otherwise it is just NOISE. It is a flaw in the poem.
apart from some acronyms such as ROTFL and TTYL and emoticons, chatspeak is regular english with lousy spelling and punctuation. It does not use different rules; it is merely less expressive words and can be typed more easily.
Chatspeak however is less poetic.. chatspeak discards all the subtle secondary meanings of words inherited over the ages from their latin, greek, or other roots.
A word once written in chatspeak, means ONLY what it means to teenage speakers of modern american english. Teenagers who lack the patience to learn how to type that is.
I am not aware of any renowned poet who ever produced their greatest works while they were a teen.... perhaps this is not a coincidence.
readers of poetry are probably well advised to simply not bother reading anything written in chatspeak at all. It is probably crap.
If you want to write in a strange way.. at least demonstrate your intelligence by being unique like e e cummings. Don't simply copy your dumbass MSN friends.
-
didn't want to have to do this, but the two of you were being amazingly ridiculous. You have both been added to my block list. Though I did greatly appreciate your comments on my column, I don't appreciate the moronic flames you are sending back and forth to each other. Grow up, both of you! When you do, let me know.
If you want to flame each other, do it privately! Nobody else wants to read your foolish conversation.' -
I didn't want to have to do this, but the two of you were being amazingly ridiculous. You have both been added to my block list. Though I did greatly appreciate your comments on my column, I don't appreciate the moronic flames you are sending back and forth to each other. Grow up, both of you! When you do, let me know.
If you want to flame each other, do it privately! Nobody else wants to read your foolish conversation. -
*IN REPLY TO MOTHER SUPERIOR JAY*
i admitted that i can be wrong, although i still believe im right about the arse thing, though i may have to ask my English teacher, just to reassure myself.
"I have said that it's pathetic to correct other people's mistakes, while embracing their own."
technically, you cant consider how i type to be a mistake, because i do it that way on purpose. but some people, like yourself, are too much of an arse to understand that or leave it alone.
do you like the use of my new word?
"...I would say that not capitalizing and not properly using apostrophes, especially in comments and embracing the fact, is poor English."
i, for some reason, cannot seem find something to contradict this with. maybe its too true and right...or maybe its just too pig-headed. i believe its the latter.
"It was a simple mockery of the repetition statement."
i guess i missed that. ah well. there will be tons more for me to catch, im sure.
"Hell, I wouldn't make any more points as nobody seems to be able to comment on my very first one."
what would you say your first point was?
"I can't whittle it down to a single word that makes sense to me?"
"Really though, I would like to know how that would be a statement."
since you would like to know, i will tell you: there is know question word. plain and simple. a question cannot exist if the sentence does not have a question word, at the beginning, i believe. i cannot seem to remember if it can go elsewhere in the sentence. i dont believe it cn, though. ~whitney!
Edited on Feb 22, 10:22 p.m. because 'revised a sentence'. -
*IN REPLY TO MOTHER SUPERIOR JAY*
the not hitting the reply button was an accident, whether you choose to believe me or not. and most likely, you will not believe me, but thats your problem.
"My arse."
i believe you mis-used that word. i hadnt heard it before, so i looked it up in a dictionary and its a noun. i dont believe you used it as such. but like i said, i could be wrong.
"NORMAL people also don't run around correcting other people's spelling and grammar. I know I don't, unless I find errors from somebody that is doing so."
i have never said i was normal; i what i said is that MISTAKES are normal. and they are. youve said yourself you make them and then going to people authors pages or their poems, you will see that people make mistakes.
"What a lovely condescending brat you are."
lovely, yes. i am very lovely. (and a bit vain at the moment, dont you think?) and i can be a condescending brat when people are bratty and condescending towards me, as you have been. also, i love sarcasm. nice use of it. (the lovely part; i know you meant the rest of it.)
"Having lousy English yourself, while correcting other's, needs no excuse? Well golly gee, I think I'm going to start running aroung correcting organic chemistry equations then!"
you dont know that i have lousy English. actually, you dont know me at all. you have never met me, therefore you dont know how i am and if im poor in English. (im not. by the way.) and it doesnt need an excuse. in fact, it isnt even your business if i go around correcting other peoples grammar, whether mine is lousy or not. unless, of course, its your grammar i am correcting. and once again, lovely use of sarcasm. i thought it quite funny.
"Seeing as how you know about humanity so well, you would also know that most people that have to constantly assert their position through force really don't have a foot to stand on."
when did i ever say i knew about humanity? and i havent seen seen you providing all that many knew points. well, maybe i missed them; i have been known to miss things or to misinterpret them.
"I can't whittle it down to a single word that makes sense to me?"
question marks are for questions, not statements. just thought id let you know. ~whitney!
Edited on Feb 22, 5:57 p.m. because 'deleting an extra word'. -
*IN REPLY TO MOTHER SUPERIOR JAY*
"simplified it to being a 'freak' about it."
well, you cannot say someone is not something they said they are, when they have never claimed to be said something. and there IS a difference between being a 'freak' and enjoying 'critiqung.'
i meant everyone has errors, therefore it is NORMAL. i did not mean it as 'oh, since everyone else does it, ill do it, too.' once again, i meant it as NORMAL. (repetition forces things into peoples heads faster, hence my use of it.)
"Being 'tired' is no excuse."
true, it is not an excuse in most things, but in some things (such as this) excuses arent needed and someone shouldnt have to defend themselves, but, unfortunately, i am a very defensive person who will argue with you or anyone else until you/they finally quit and realize im right, or until you/they realize that im not going to quit, least not until you/they have. ~whitney!
Edited on Feb 20, 10:39 p.m. because 'forgot to say who it was in reply to, although its pretty obvious.'. -
*IN REPLY TO MOTHER SUPERIOR JAY*
it is NOT out of following the crowd. people make mistakes. im part of 'people,' as are you. i make mistakes and i sometimes dont go back to fix them. yes, it could be from laziness. i will admit that i can be lazy. but is it possible that i may be tired after school, band, my emotional stress, and my frieds' emotional stress? that maybe im tired enough to not want to deal with correcting every single grammatical and spelling error i make? i think its possible, but, eh, matter of opinion.
i also never claimed to be a spelling and grammar 'freak,' although you never actually said i said that i was and that im not, you implied it in one of your comments. ~whitney! -
*IN REPLY TO MOTHER SUPERIOR JAY*
that is because i dont type with apostrophes, unless it is for school. nor do i capitalize the personal pronoun. on this site, i capitalize and use apostrophes when a contest i am entering has rules about that sort of thing. otherwise, my use of them nearly non-existent.
if you were to ask my friends(and im sure you wouldnt care to do so) i am almost constantly correcting their grammar. when we write a paper for an assignment, they like to have me read over it and check for their spelling and grammatical errors.
my errors on my author page do not mean a thing. near most everyone has errors on theirs, hence my having them.
~whitney! -
Thanks for reading and thanks for pointing out the error. I'll fix that now.
-
I agree with you completely! I think it's annoying to see poetry with internet lingo rather than proper English. It doesn't make the writer seem stupid, it just makes them come across as lazy and not serious about their poetry. Chat speak is often hard to understand, especially in poetry. I feel that internet lingo does not belong in poems. If an author can’t take the time to spell out “you” or any other words that they usually write in chat speak, then honestly, they should just keep their writing to themselves. Though Allpoetry is not an English class, proper English and correct grammar should still be used. It will make a world of difference how readers view the poem and the writer. Many people consider me a “Grammar Nazi” but I’m just serious about the poems I read and write. I would never write a poem in internet lingo because it looks ridiculous. It’s not an instant message to a friend, it’s a poem; and it should be treated like one. People that use chat speak in their poetry should reconsider. Save the chat speak/internet lingo for messages to friends. Excellent column.
Not to be an annoyance to you, but I found an error in this column, “Poetry is an art, so shouldn't it be displayed properly and in proper english?” English is a proper noun and should always be capitalized. Other than that, I didn't find any errors.
Awesome column, it was very well written and very informative.
- Andi
Edited on Apr 02, 1:57 p.m. because ''. -
I've never had a rule against chatspeak in any of my contests, and there has never been an entry with chatspeak. Perhaps your topics are too wide.
-
Thank you for pointing out the error! I don't think I would have spotted that. *off to fix it*
-
thank you. ill go and change it now. ~whitney!
-
the e should be left out of critiquing when adding ing.
Edited on Feb 17, 6:15 p.m. because 'critiquin is...just no'. -
I found no spelling errors in the above piece, just to note. I'm a spelling fanatic, so take it from me when I say that. I always point out typos.
But anyway, you make some very good point in this piece and I completely agree. I also believe that, even though the person typing in chat speak may not be stupid or immature, they certainly sound it when they type that way and that also effects how they are viewed as a person and a poet on the internet. This, I think, is another reason why chat speak is not suited for poetry. If a poet wants to be taken seriously, they should take that into consideration.
We all go through the chat speak phase. I went through it myself, but was soon driven out of it, though I don't remember how that came to be. I have never written a poem in chat speak, however. At least not a serious poem. Chat speak is alright for a good laugh. Even |_33+ speak can be fun, but it is very taxing on the brain and the eyes. I don't think people who start out using chat speak realise this, but I do beleive they all will eventually. Perhaps this column will help them realise it a little faster.
Edited on Feb 18, 10:37 because ''. -
I couldn't agree more, when writing poetry for general comsumption it really doesn't take much longer to actually spell properly! However, I can also see your point about chatspeak not being so bad when you're doing a quick vent type of poem, and I'd not thought of it like that before (but then I don't really use chatspeak that much even in chat!)
In conclusion, you are so right! -
i agree, and, by the way,i didnt find any errors. sorry. i had to say that cause im very big on grammatical and spelling critiquing, and i tend to find most mistakes anyone makes, although, i tend to not tell anyone in poetry comments. ~whitney!
Edited on Feb 17, 6:16 p.m. because 'spelling'. -
I do agree with you! When I hold a contest I make rules against it, but that is about all I can do other than refuse to read it. As I said I do agree, and I am sorry that your opinion wasn't taken well. We do have to remember though that without different opinions the world would be flat. I personally do not choose to write what I feel should be formal in chatspeak or any other informal way; however, some may not agree and that is ok. I appreciate you taking the time to post your argument. I agree totally, but you have to remember we aren't all the same. We don't all hold the same importance to same things.
Adding your comment:
1 - 19 of 19
