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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.'"
f1r5t p05t
i alwys thot tht tech had a negggative impakt on engrish... silly mee :) lolzorz
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Basically, before, you used to have editors who'd mold everything into U Chicago style guidelines or some such.
Now, everybody is his own editor. Is it web server or webserver? Web site or website? You decide.
You'll probably also see stuff where editors once had their fingers in the dike (like preventing the spread of "snuck") deluge the linguistic landscape.
Also people are free to verb nouns as they please.
Finally, I've noticed people are a lot more comfortable spontaneously making up portmanteaus.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
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?
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
What gave you the impression that he wanted an unchanging English Language? I didn't see him expressing an opinion one way or the other - just explaining how these things come and go.
Texting has probably contributed more to the degeneration of english than moos and muds.
There is no issue with "textspeak" or anything like that. A good command of a language is needed in order to convey meaning in an abbreviated manner.
The only problem is where the literacy level of the individual is low enough that they'll use this format in other forms of communication which don't necessarily require such heavy brevity. It's not Twitter's fault, or phone networks who limit SMS characters. It's education, pure and simple.
Well, that technology's history now and the language has gone with it.
Yes, because things like "LOL" and "WTF" have disappeared from the lexicon.
On wait, no they haven't. Turns out this guy is wrong on all counts. The technology is still here, and has in fact spread, and the language it has inspired is not gone, and has in fact spread.
To pull out a fact like, less than 10% of text messages contain LOL-speak like abbreviations does not mean that will not be a lasting part of the language, it just means it's not a new language. What percentage of text messages contain 'yacht' or some other word pertaining to watercraft? If it's less than 10%, does that mean those words are not part of the language?
The article and research it's based on sound more like an undergraduate paper than mature research. Where are the comparisons to the telegraph and telephone? This is not the first time technology has changed the way we communicate and the language we use.
And I refuse to stop using kewl. It's too kewl not to. Crap I'm old.
I dispute his claim that the terms are even English. They're slanguage* at best and more often mere craft jargon. To qualify as "English", it has to have sustained use, a definable meaning and exist outside limited subcultures. (Or it has to appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. I'll accept that.)
MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) is technically the name of a specific game engine, although it can also refer to any game engine of a similar ilk. It is a technical term. The same is true of MOOs, although actually only one gaming engine ever existed as far as I know (LambdaMOO).
*Slanguage: Something that is more complete and concrete than slang but which cannot be defined as a language in its own right.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
So we name them (sometimes from their marketing terms) and then we verb them.
"Verbing weirds language" but it works for the time being, and then it gets accepted through repeated use or misuse.
I think we lost when I found "irregardless" in the dictionary.
- James D. Nicoll
And...
- Christiana Ellis
Jeg opgiv.
--
BMO
Prepare to shock me. :)
I'm serious. There aren't many words that originated with slang. Bastardization, perhaps, but even there I don't think it's as common as you think. However, there's an easy way to settle this. There are plenty of online etymology dictionaries. Can you give me a few examples of words where said dictionaries show the word to have been coined and to have no roots? (Because things get increasingly uncertain as you go back in time, let's set the 12th century as a cutoff point.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Why would a linguist of all people have such a romantic attachment to the idea of an unchanging English language?
"For a linguist like me, this is very exciting but for your average pedant this is horrifying."
I didn't really see anything in the article indicating he desired an unchanging English language or even particularly critical of the changes he's observing.
The problem with it is a that a spear isn't a pointy stick, it was a specific kind of pointy stick. More than that, spears were upgraded and refined and before too long they were more than just a pointy stick. They would be a stick with a piece of rock, or a bronze head; at which point they were no longer pointy sticks at all.
I guess it depends on what you define as slang... I don't see why a word that originated as "slang" can't have a root. The "root" is simply the first known instance of it appearing in a written document. Who knows who the first person to actually coin the term was, and how prevalent its use was before someone wrote it down? I imagine many of the words we attribute to a particular author were actually in a regional use before they were first put into print.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
I wouldn't say an explosion of "time consuming video tutorials" is a sign of eroding language skills at all. No matter whether you're trying to teach someone abstract physics, equipment maintenance, or anything else, the majority of people find such instruction much easier to understand when it is accompanied by some kind of visual aid. Seeing a picture of something aids comprehension; seeing a video or live presentation can help even more.
Further, it is often much simpler (and more importantly, faster) just to demonstrate something than to sit down and type out a lengthy explanation. I can set up a camera, do a video tutorial, and upload it to youtube in less time than it would take me to document the same process in text and pictures.
Overall, the trend towards more video in place of text has more to do with the easy availability of video capturing and editing equipment, and available bandwidth, than any failure of language skills.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Technology isn't just adding new terms to the language, it's also changing, and in some cases erasing, idioms that already exist. Take for example the phrase, "you sound like a broken record". How many people under the age of 25 even know what a broken record sounds like? As time goes on I expect that phrase to become increasingly rare, and to be replaced by a similar phrase, thus completing the circle of life :P
Maybe, maybe not. People still talk about putting the cart before the horse, but I'd bet most Americans don't have personal experience with horse-drawn carts. Never mind making silk purses out of sow's ears. "Broken record" might fall out of favor, or it might linger on like "the quick and the dead" (pretty much the only place in modern English where "quick" still means alive instead of fast).
Hmm, do TV commercials still say "Don't touch that dial!"?
Why would a linguist of all people have such a romantic attachment to the idea of an unchanging English language?
He found ceiling cat?
"John haz sum revelashunz. Tehy frum teh Happycat, but wuz furst frum Ceiling Cat, an tehy to show what iz comin. Teh Ceiling Cat sended hiz angel to John to give revelashunz." revelashunz 1:1
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Technology isn't just adding new terms to the language, it's also changing, and in some cases erasing, idioms that already exist. Take for example the phrase, "you sound like a broken record". How many people under the age of 25 even know what a broken record sounds like? As time goes on I expect that phrase to become increasingly rare, and to be replaced by a similar phrase, thus completing the circle of life :P
I think language is more arbitrary and unpredictable than that.
We still 'dial' a number, and our phones still 'ring', even though the actual dials and bells haven't been around for a generation. We still drop someone a line, even though operated-assisted calling hasn't been necessary for longer than this old grey-hair has been alive. We still go full steam ahead even though ships haven't burned coal for over a century. And people are still POSH centuries after 'Port Outward, Starboard Home' lost its original meaning.
Some phrases do drop out of currency, but others, for reasons too complex to fathom, seem to endure for centuries. Envy, for example, has been 'green' since Elizabethan times. Beautiful women have been compared to the sun since the Italian Renaissance. And ass-kissing has been around since Chaucer's time.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
From an etymology dictionary: 1756, "special vocabulary of tramps or thieves," later "jargon of a particular profession" (1801), of uncertain origin, perhaps from a Scandinavian source, cf. Norw. slengenamn "nickname," slengja kjeften "to abuse with words," lit. "to sling the jaw," related to O.N. slyngva "to sling." But OED, while admitting "some approximation in sense," discounts this connection based on "date and early associations." Liberman also denies it, as well as any connection with Fr. langue. Rather, he derives it elaborately from an old word meaning "narrow piece of land." Sense of "very informal language characterized by vividness and novelty" first recorded 1818. A word that ought to have survived is slangwhanger (1807, Amer.Eng.) "noisy or abusive talker or writer."
The 1756 definition would fit with your 13th century translation, which means it has a definite root as far back as is meaningful to go.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
James Nicoll
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