White collars suffer most depression The rising popularity of text messaging on mobile phones poses a threat to writing standards among Irish schoolchildren, an Irish education commission says. The frequency of errors in grammar and punctuation has become a serious concern, the State Examination Commission said in a report after reviewing last year's exam performance by 15-year-olds. "The emergence of the mobile phone and the rise of text messaging as a popular means of communication would appear to have impacted on standards of writing as evidenced in the responses of candidates," the report said, according to Wednesday's Irish Times. "Text messaging, with its use of phonetic spelling and little or no punctuation, seems to pose a threat to traditional conventions in writing." The report laments that, in many cases, candidates seemed "unduly reliant on short sentences, simple tenses and a limited vocabulary." In 2003, Irish 15-year-olds were among the top 10 performers in an international league table of literacy standards compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (AP)

愛爾蘭某教育委員會稱，手機短信的日益普及對愛爾蘭學生的書寫規范造成了威脅。 愛爾蘭國家考試委員會在針對去年15歲學生考試成績的評論報告中稱，語法和標點錯誤頻頻出現，已成為一個嚴重的問題。 據周三的《愛爾蘭時報》消息，這份報告中稱，“手機的出現和手機短信日益成為一種流行的交流方式對書寫規范造成了不良影響，這在考生的答卷中得到了證明。” “發手機短信常用語音輸入法，很少或根本不用標點，這對傳統的書寫規范造成了威脅。” 報告指出，在很多情況下，考生“過度使用短句和簡單的時態，所用的詞匯也很有限。” 2003年，愛爾蘭15歲年齡組的學生在經合組織讀寫規范國際大賽中躋身十強。 （英語點津姍姍編輯）