background preloader

Technology

Facebook Twitter

John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!! Gizoogle. How the internet is killing off silent letters. Professor David Crystal says people drop letters when typing them into search engines He says the internet will influence changes in spelling in the future Academic labels the 'h' in rhubarb as 'illogical' By Daily Mail Reporter Published: 08:29 GMT, 2 June 2013 | Updated: 06:40 GMT, 3 June 2013 David Crystal, professor of linguistics of Bangor University, explained how people are dropping letters when typing words into search engines Common misspellings of English words could be acceptable within a few years because they are used online, a linguist has said.

‘Rhubarb’ could change to ‘rubarb’, ‘receipt’ to ‘receit’ and ‘necessary’ to ‘neccesary’. Simpler online forms of ‘irritating’ complex words are starting to affect mainstream usage, linguistics professor David Crystal told the Hay Literary Festival. He started monitoring the word ‘rhubarb’ ten years ago by typing the correct spelling into a search engine, then the error ‘rubarb’. ‘Rhubarb is still the dominant one by a factor of 50. The terror of tweeting: social medium or academic message? | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional. Social media involves a loss of control, says Claire Warwick, and no amount of guidance will get the sceptics tweeting.

Photograph: Kenneth Anderson. Imagine, if you will, what follows is the beginning of a guide for academics on how best to give a talk. The first paragraph might go something like this: "Walk into the room – do make sure that you open the door first, or you might get a nasty bang on the nose! You might notice there are people sitting in seats in front of you. Don't be scared.

Academics, who regularly write articles, books, policy documents and lectures, would, quite rightly, be insulted if they read such advice on how to communicate their research. Can tweeting really be so difficult that it must be explained in such terms? My experience of colleagues who don't tweet doesn't suggest this. If ignorance or fear is not what deters academics from tweeting, what could the matter be?

Social media involves a loss of control and an exercise in trust and openness. Colloquial social media lingo giving English language its pop culture.