Is text speech taking over our English language?

Texting, taking over the world? Really?

Lots of different people have their own opinions on texting. Some people like me and many people I know like it because it's quick, easy and simple. It also costs less money than having to call someone and saves time. However, some people like in the 'I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language' article think it is stupid and destroying our English language as now words associated with 'text speech' are now in the dictionary like 'yolo' and it has even changed the way in which we spell certain words.

John Humpreys (author of the article 'I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language') starts off by stating his love for dictionaries and how much more useful and interesting they are than being able to look up something on the internet.

Then he starts ranting about how texting has changed the way in which we spell certain words, making it more effort to write instead of less which he says is the whole point in text speech in the first place. To a certain extent I agree with what he is saying, because certain words have had hyphens removed from words, but the majority of words have stayed the same. Personally I don't actually know that many people apart from my mum that use text speech, most of the people I know still use proper words using their proper spelling. Also is the removal of things like hyphens in words really the end of the world? So what if we have to write two words instead of one, not many people will really start a riot over this simple change in our language.

He also goes on to say that 'texters' are 'raping our vocabulary' which I think is a little bit overboard as people still use standard English when talking and only change the way in which words are spelled to make texting easier and faster. In essays or letters or anything written that is not a text message, people still spell correctly and use standard English. There are not that many words out of the whole of the English language that have changed due to text speech becoming more and more common. However, I do have to say even in spoken language, text speech is used. For example, many people when they find something funny do now tend to say 'lol' which means laugh out loud. This may only be a thing from my generation of people, but instead of laughing people say lol. It is also used when you have nothing else to say.

Texting has formed new slang words and created words with double meanings. For example, some people say instead of 'that's amazing!' they now can say 'that's sick!' which means the same thing. However, the word sick is normally associated with someone vomiting, not something being amazing. This is when I can understand John Humpreys claim that texting is wrecking our language.

However, texting has in a way formed it's our language and meanings explained in the article 'Cn u txt?'. The author, John Sutherland explains how texting is brainwashing our younger generation into communicating with their thumbs more than their mouths, furthermore making the younger generation more lazy than older generations. He even says in the article that now an increasing amount of people are using their keyboards instead of spoken language. Another thing mentioned in the article is that lots of individual groups in society has it's own codes when it comes to texting. This I think counts as a form of regional dialect but in text form.

David Crystal who wrote the '2b or not 2b' article says that this is not a disaster to the English Language but it adds a new dimension to it. He also supports that not as many people are using these abbreviation in texting as first thought. In fact only 20% of texts showed any form on abbreviation in them, many people like I said still use standard English when texting.

Overall, I don't think text speech is taking over our English Language, although some of the words that have been put in the dictionary because of it are quite amusing don't you think? Also i do think some of the abbreviations used in them, for example, ROLF means rolling on the floor laughing.