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  3. Texting has long been lamented as the downfall of the written word, "penmanship for illiterates," as one critic called it. To w

Texting has long been lamented as the downfall of the written word, "penmanship for illiterates," as one critic called it. To w

admin2022-11-25  91
问题     Texting has long been lamented as the downfall of the written word, "penmanship for illiterates," as one critic called it. To which the proper response is LOL. Texting properly isn’t writing at all—it’s actually more similar to spoken language. And it’s a "spoken" language that is getting richer and more complex by the year.
    Historically, talking came first; writing is just an artifice that came along later. While talk is largely subconscious and rapid, writing is deliberate and slow. Over time, writers took advantage of this and started crafting sentences such as this one, from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "The whole engagement lasted above 12 hours, till the gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the principal leaders and the Surenas himself."
    No one talks like that casually—or should. But it is natural to desire to do so for special occasions. In the old days, we didn’t much write like talking because there was no mechanism to reproduce the speed of conversation. But texting and instant messaging do—and a revolution has begun. It involves the basic mechanics of writing, but in its economy, spontaneity and even vulgarity, texting is actually a new kind of talking. There is a virtual fashion of concision and little interest in capitalization or punctuation. The argument that texting is "poor writing" is analogous, then, to one that the Rolling Stones is "bad music" because it doesn’t use violas.
    Texting is developing its own kind of grammar. Take LOL. It doesn’t actually mean "laughing out loud" in a literal sense anymore. LOL has evolved into something much subtler and sophisticated and is used even when nothing is remotely amusing. Jocelyn texts "Where have you been?" and Annabelle texts back "LOL at the library studying for two hours." LOL signals basic empathy between texters, easing tension and creating a sense of equality. Instead of having a literal meaning, it does something—conveying an attitude—just like the "-ed" ending conveys past tense rather than "meaning" anything. LOL, of all things, is grammar.
    Civilization is fine—people banging away on their smartphones are fluently using a code separate from the one they use in actual writing, and there is no evidence that texting is ruining composition skills. Worldwide people speak differently from the way they write, and texting—quick, casual and only intended to be read once—is actually a way of talking with your fingers.
"Penmanship for illiterates" (Para. 1) suggests that ________.
选项 A、texting is language degradation
B、texting is a disgrace to literature
C、texting is responsible for illiteracy
D、texting is more spoken than written
答案A
解析 根据题目可直接定位到第一段。文章以大众对发短信的看法开头，第一句指出发短信息被看作书面语的衰落(downfall of the written word)，接着在第三句提出自己的观点：发短信息不是写作，短信更接近于口头语言。A项中的degradation与原文中的downfall为同义替换，故A项为正确答案。原文只提到发短信被人视为书面语的衰落，并没有提到literature “文学”与发短信的关系，这里书面语不能与文学等同，B项将信息点放大了，不准确。原文仅提出发短信被看作是文盲所使用的写作方式，并没有谈到二者的因果关系，因此C项错误。D项是作者的个人看法，而所考查的短语是第一句中critic“评论家”和其他人的看法，D项答非所问。
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