FROM THE PULPIT: THE WRITTEN WORD -- WILL IT DISAPPEAR?

We seem to be writing more these days. Electronic mail, we usually refer to it as e-mail, has many more persons writing notes than ever before. Chat rooms on the internet offer persons the opportunity to converse through the typewritten word. Still, with all this writing going on, the English language seems to be suffering as never before. We are so worried about speed in communication that grammar and usage have become optional. It is more important to get the word out now than to express thoughts in the correct tense and person. What's happened to us?

Our lives are filled now with FAQ's, also known as Frequently Asked Questions. How do I write an e-mail? The style, for the most part, includes no capitalization, little punctuation, and is frequently composed of a series of short phrases, not sentences and paragraphs. We are surrounded by the printed word in magazines and newspapers. Yet, when we communicate with one another, through the most popular medium of the day, the internet, we speak in broken English at best.

If you are an internet regular, you may have reached this point in the column and found yourself ROFL or ROFLOL. What does that mean, you ask?

Well, it's pretty simple really, they're acronyms: Rolling On Floor Laughing, or Rolling On Floor Laughing Out Loud. Many people think that the deterioration of the English language is no big deal. English has changed over the centuries, this evolution is just one in a long series of changes.

I beg to differ. We, as a people, are beginning to lose the skills of grammar and usage. Perhaps our language should and must change as the years go by.

The increasing amounts of e-mail communication each day have forced us to write once again. What we used to say over the phone, we now try to write in an e-mail. If we don't write clearly and concisely, will communication take place at all? Maybe, but misunderstanding will be just as common.

The letters of Paul have stood the test of time. Written centuries ago, we still turn to them for information and inspiration. When was the last time we wrote a letter? Can we still make the English language work? I believe we can and we must. When we're writing these countless thousands of e-mail notes, could we perhaps try to write in English? We would know what we're saying and the receiver would know too. There wouldn't be the guesswork involved with a series of acronyms (e.g. FAQ, ROFL, ROFLOL).

I'm glad we're communicating more these days. I can send messages to family and friends quickly and receive a response just as quickly. My concern is for the written word. Will it disappear? I pray not, but each of us must do our part to see that the English language lives on. TTFN (that's internet-ese for Ta-Ta For Now) :)