How Technology Is Shaping Language

An anonymous reader writes "This is an interesting article about how technology is shaping the English language, which touches on the fate of the current crop of (sometimes silly) tech-inspired words, and anticipates an increased blurring of the line between the written and spoken word. Professor David Crystal, honorary professor at the School of Linguistics and English Studies at the University of Bangor, says, 'This kind of ludicity [linguistic playfulness] is very attractive for a while. People keep it going and then it sort of falls out of use. Exactly how long it will go on for is unclear but it's like any game, any novelty, any linguistic novelty — I can't see it lasting. If you look back 10 years ago to the kind of clever-clever things that were going on in the 1990s — MUDs and MOOs — all the early game strategies and lots of very interesting language features coming up as people tried to develop a style of language that would suit the technology. Well, that technology's history now and the language has gone with it.'"

Comments

The Jargon File

[ideonexus]

It would have been nice to include a little deeper history in this article, like maybe talking about the Jargon File, the dictionary for old school hackers that's filled with fascinating history about the technology and innovations behind some of the terms we still use online today.

Or would that detract from the idea that cultural-shifts resulting in lexical shifts is some kind of totally new and unexpected phenomenon?