Crystal David - Txtng: the Gr8 Db8

David Crystal is honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Bangor. He has written or edited over 100 books and published numerous articles for scholarly, professional, and general readerships, in fields ranging from forensic linguistics and ELT to the liturgy and Shakespeare. His books include the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (3rd edn 2010), Just a Phrase Im Going Through: My Life in Language (Routledge, 2009), The Fight for English (OUP 2006) and Fowlers Dictionary of Modern English Usage (OUP, 2009).

The Gr8 Db8

David Crystal
With cartoons by Ed McLachlan

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

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David Crystal 2008
the cartoon illustrations Ed McLachlan 2008

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First Published 2008
First published in paperback 2009

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Virtually every day I get an email or phone call occasionally even a letter from someone asking a linguistic question or wanting to share a linguistic observation. And over the past year or so Ive noticed a trend: about half of these communications are about texting. For example, in May 2007 I received this from a journalist:

Here in Orange County, California, 11 to 13-year-olds are increasingly using acronyms in their conversations. Text message shorthand is now everyday talk. Instead of exclaiming, Oh my god, kids will say, OMG! Instead of Just kidding, they will say, JK. I would like to know what you think of this development. Is it good or bad for language? Why is it happening? Has it happened before?

I put a brief response up on my blog.

As I was doing so, I searched for a general book which would answer these questions more fully. I couldnt find one. My own previous writing on this topic had been brief and anecdotal. Even in my Language and the Internet (2001), I devoted only a page or two to texting, as mobile phones were really off topic. And my Glossary of Netspeak and Textspeak (2004) was little more than a collection of usages, with no discussion of the issues raised by the journalist. A huge amount of research has been done on texting in the last ten years, but not much seems to have reached the general public.

It is the extraordinary antipathy to texting which has surprised me. I dont think I have ever come across a topic which has attracted more adult antagonism. I was sitting next to a lady at a literary lunch recently, who asked me what I was writing next. I told her about this book. I hate texting, she said. Why? I asked. All those stupid abbreviations, she said. But (summarizing my ) None of them are new, I said. You played with abbreviations like those when you were a child. What have you got against them now? I dont know, she said. I just hate them. And, realizing that this was an argument of the I love/hate modern art type, I let the matter drop. Id like to think, after reading this book, that she might change her mind or, at least, come to realize that texting has values worth recognizing, even if she cannot appreciate them.

So there is clearly a topic to be debated, hence the sub-title to this book. But texting first of all needs to be described and explained. I first thought of writing a book on the subject in 2002, as a kind of sequel to my Language and the Internet; but the phenomenon was too recent. There was fascination and speculation a-plenty, but very little research into its linguistic character and function. Five years on, a large number of research reports have appeared, exploring text messaging from technological, sociological, psychological, commercial, and linguistic points of view, making it possible to start discussing its nature and purpose in a more informed and realistic way. Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 is a linguists take, as of 2008, on this rapidly evolving and highly intriguing topic.

Finally, I must acknowledge the help I have received from friends and colleagues in various parts of the world (listed in the Appendix) who have taken the trouble to compile lists of texting usage in their countries. Thanks to them, I have been able to give Txtng a much-needed multilingual perspective.

David Crystal
Holyhead

Texting fogs your brain like cannabis

Texting does not influence literacy skills

Texting replaces speech for communication among teenagers

Texting deprives children of sleep

Texting linked positively with literacy achievements

Texting helps shy teenagers communicate

Teenagers to get free mobiles to improve literacy standards

Mobiles prove effective in getting NEETs back into learning

NEETs? Those not currently engaged in employment, education, or training an acronym introduced following a UK government report in 2000.

We seem to have a problem. Has there ever been a linguistic phenomenon which has aroused such curiosity, suspicion, fear, confusion, antagonism, fascination, excitement, and enthusiasm, all at once? And in such a short space of time. Less than a decade ago, hardly anyone had heard of it.

The idea of a point-to-point short message service (or SMS) began to be discussed as part of the development