Txting: The Gr8 Deb8

Sending a text message has become second-nature to so many of us that we barely think about it any more. Running late for an appointment? Send a quick text. Want to let someone know you’re thinking of them? Zip off a couple lines.

It’s become an accepted mode of communication - getting a message out without the time or disruption of a phone call. It’s amazing to think that just a few years ago hardly any of us were texting. Today about three billion people on the planet – half the world’s population – have cell phones. And at least a trillion text messages are sent each year.

The question of how all the abbreviations and vowel-less words used to text will affect our language hangs over us. Is texting eroding the way we write and speak? David Crystal is a linguist and author of over a hundred books on linguistics and other topics. His most recent is Txting: The Gr8 Deb8. He argues that all the popular beliefs about texting are wrong, or at least debatable. And that far from hindering literacy, texting may be helping it. He joins Word of Mouth from his home in Holyhead, North Wales.

(Photo by vossjose)