The recent announcement by the Assessment Qualifications Alliance that 10% of English GCSE marks are to be awarded for comprehension of text messaging lingo has attracted a fair amount of commentary. To many, the move represents the ultimate in dumbing down. I can actually see both sides of the coin here. Like many old-skool writas, I'm often shocked by poor standards of literacy and tut-tut about anything that undermines standards. On the other hand, there's no doubt that these truncated forms of English are here to stay and play an important part in modern communication. So perhaps I ought to be giving the AQA exam innovation an enthusiastic smiley emoticon and multiple exclamation marks. How the hell is it going to work in practice though? Exams are usually set by middle-aged people who know a lot about a particular subject. They are then taken by young urchins who don't know jack. If the exam is about SMS language, however, the people setting the questions are likely ...
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