Blog post 1:
John Humphreys thinks that the OED has let him down by modernising. It’s done this by removing the hyphen from over 16000 words he describes that he finds it daft that we ‘don’t have time to reach for the hyphen key’ as its only one tiny key stroke. He feels that text speak is pointless and doesn’t save time as ‘the recipient of the message has to spend ten minutes trying to translate it’. He thinks that the text speak of the new generation is ruining the English language and taking over and eventually people won’t know how to speak the English language properly without ‘grotesque abbreviations’. In summary he is saying that text speak, abbreviations and the lack of punctuation in text messages is destroying the language.
Blog post 2:
Like the first blog post from John Humphreys, John Sutherland also has a negative view on the world of texting. He describes texting as ‘snot talk’, it’s disposable. He recognises that texting is very much a European fad and that America is slower on picking up on the craze of SMS. He describes texting as ‘penmanship for illiterates’ and claims the reason it is so popular is that it hides mental laziness, quoting ‘wood-headed educationalists’. In his eyes text language is ‘bleak, bald, sad shorthand’ implying that no emotion at all can be conveyed by the ridiculous abbreviations being made within text language. He likens the younger generation and texting to chimps with banana phones, creating a negative image for the reader to support his argument. In the conclusion he agrees with Roger Fischer, who wrote History of Writing’ in that writing is becoming ever more defined as more people are able to, and are, writing.
Blog post 3:
Unlike the first two blog posts, David Crystal has a much more positive outlook on the notion of texting. He believes that texting is good thing, it generates billions of money each year and that it could even improve literacy ability in young people. Instead of