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OMG Gatsby Was a Fraud!

It's no ROFL matter: web-speak, text-talk and even :( are slipping into schoolwork

By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff

Posted Apr 24, 2008 9:07 PM CDT

(Newser) – Two-thirds of American teens aren’t keeping their LOLs to themselves: They're turning in papers and lab reports with abbreviations, dropped punctuation, and other informalities inherent to Internet and text-message vocabularies, the AP reports. Kids who write blogs and have Facebook pages are more likely to slip from formality in their schoolwork, a new survey shows—but OMG! grown-ups aren’t that upset about it.

One watcher said informal seepages are opportunities to teach appropriate boundaries. And an SAT exec says perhaps the adult world should come to the kids, proclaiming, “Language changes”—and wondering when we’ll all start dropping capitalization from the beginning of sentences. So keep putting those :<( and :<)s in your pop quizzes: Maybe they’ll make the Chicago Manual of Style.

More teens are letting Internet-speak seep into their school papers.
More teens are letting Internet-speak seep into their school papers.   (AP Photo/Timothy E. Black)
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