₦airaland Forum

Dioxidane:
Quite true! The one that annoys me most is when I see people use abbreviations when writing, chatting or making comments on social media I tell people whenever I have the opportunity to talk with them that it is a very bad habit. It is sheer laziness. Your spelling skills would definitely decline. And most times the ones that call themselves graduates indulge in such. It's no more a surprise to me when I see people make comments like, 'too long, can't read.' Like, what the hell?? Nigerian youths really need to CHANGE!

Used to think I was the only person who get pissed off when I see such abbreviated sentences and words. For crying out loud, if you want to write in English, write/spell correctly or write in pidgin where abbreviations are allowed and there're no correct writing patterns. Beside Text messaging and Twitter where one's writing is limited to 150 characters, comments on social media should be done using properly typed English words. Even when chatting on Whatsapp.

For the topic, I'll table a huge chunk of the blame on parents. Growing up, my parent had a habit of returning home from work with a newspaper/magazine. Mother would call I and my elder brother to come take a copy and read for about an hour. When we return from the "reading room", she'll begin to question us on major headlines and what we understood from the articles. I became a fan of Tell magazine this way. This went on till I left home for the boarding house. I wonder how many homes even have reading rooms today.

Another thing my parent did then was the daily bible readings we practiced during morning devotions. When its your turn, you would read and share your understanding of the day's bible readings with the rest of the family. So it wasn't just reading alone, we were expected to be able to understand and share what we read.

Social media unfortunately has contributed to a decline in our reading, speaking and spelling culture also. It's easier to say or write "coz" than it is to say "Because".