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

lusers

[Tsingi]

f1r5t p05t

Re:lusers

[Dogtanian]

f1r5t p05t

Ho ho.... ironically 1337 5p34k is an *excellent* example of a playful linguistic Internet fad that rose (it was everywhere a few years ago) and fell (how often do you see it now except in an occasional half-arsed "ironic" comment?)

I've said it before, but what (in hindsight) was its fairly rapid decline occurred around the time that mainstream newspaper articles explaining the phenomenom to every man and his dog started appearing- not a coincidence, I suspect. Many such phenomena rely on a mixture of geeky esotericness and fashion, and when some teenager's parents know all about it, it kills them both, along with such geeks' younger siblings wanting their *own* fads. This will probably explain- and predict- a major turnover of such phenomena.

funy

[supersloshy]

i alwys thot tht tech had a negggative impakt on engrish... silly mee :) lolzorz

Re:funy

[SnarfQuest]

vowels, spaces, and punctuation used to be left out of the printed word. They weren't part of the writing system. See old hebrew, egyption, etc. texts for examples. maybe we are just returning back to those times. Whtwldbwrngbttht?

No editors == linguistic variation

[Compaqt]

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.

Re:No editors == linguistic variation

[Smallpond]

I named my last kid Kevin8992 so he could get his actual name on his email.

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?

Re:The Jargon File

[gman003]

Waitwaitwaitwaitwait

You read the article, but not the summary?

Everything I know about /. is now a lie.

Re:Texting

[schlesinm]

Most studies (such as http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7910075.stm) have shown that texting actually increases skills.

Re:Language changes, get over it

[jd]

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.

You have to do /something/ with all these doodads

[bmo]

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.

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.[5]

- James D. Nicoll

And...

"Getting upset about marketing speak is like getting upset about the finer points of pig Latin."

- Christiana Ellis

Jeg opgiv.

--
BMO

Re:Texting

[jd]

I have books (printed and handwritten) from both before and after the invention of the telegraph. The sample size is limited, but I can definitely say that English did deteriorate. In fairness, though, that's as much the educational system as the technology. By insisting on producing "marketable" people, it can never produce "capable" people.

(Some people learn Computer Science away from the computer. They learn the theory, the logic, the reasoning, the methods and the actual science. Only then do they see how these relate to any given implementation of a computer or any given implementation of a language. These people are capable and a change in technology won't impact them in the slightest. Their skills will "just work" and their lingo will "just apply".)

Re:Language changes, get over it

[tgeek]

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.

Re:Language changes, get over it

[jpapon]

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.

Re:Not just adding terms

[grcumb]

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.

Re:Texting

[robot256]

Had you lived 150 years ago, you would have said the same about telegraphese

*dot* *dash* *dot* *dot*
*dash* *dash* *dash*
*dot* *dash* *dot* *dot*

You've totally misunderstood him. Full stop.

*dot* *dash* *dot* *dot* = L
*dash* *dash* *dash* = O
*dot* *dash* *dot* *dot* = L

Not that I've heard of it being used in Morse much. But it's funny when my (older) ham radio friends send text messages to their kids asking"QTH? QRX 1 HR" and get "????" in response.