How texting influences our language
A couple of days ago, I read an interesting article written by the linguist David Crystal in the Guardian, 2b or not 2b?. In the article, Crystal replies to an earlier article by John Humphrys, I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language. Humphrys likens texters who use abbreviations to "vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours eight hundred years ago. They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary". According to Crystal, texters are not savage vandals. Texting does not make us dyslexic, nor does it lead us into mental slothfulness. In order to break rules in a consistent manner, they need to be understood. Texting using abbreviations requires a sound understanding of orthographic rules. The abbreviations can thus be interpreted as a fun commentary, a meta-discourse on these rules. Instead of taking away a dimension from our language, texting using abbreviations adds a new dimension to it.
Interesting fact from Crystal's article: In the US, less than 20% of text messages show abbreviations, most messages are written using standard orthography. In Norway, the number is even lower, about 6%.
