Is Twitter Killing The English Language?
Nov 19th, 2009 by David Svet
A friend of mine said that the other day. He was giving a presentation on social media at the time. I was floored when he made a statement that he felt Twitter was killing the English language. He went on to say that was why he refused to use it. I was stunned. My friend is in his late twenties. He’s well educated, extremely articulate, and remarkably thoughtful. He’s one of the most well read people I know, and I hang with some major league geeks. Am I missing something? Do you see it?
Is the limit to 140 characters in Twitter changing the way that we write and speak? For me, I don’t think so. I write more now than I did before I used Twitter. In fact, I write far more now because I can use Twitter to start conversations about what I’ve written. My writing has improved because I make a greater effort to do it and to do it well.
I read more now, too. The people that I follow on Twitter are fascinating. They are able to find more interesting and relevant information than I could ever dream of finding on my own. So, they provide a collective research effort that I can’t match. This makes me smarter, or at least more studied. I’m also able to get their opinions and suggestions by inviting them in with a tweet. This is not shortchanging my literary skills — far from it. For my world, Twitter has been my reintroduction to writing.
Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hw-shakespeare.jpg
I’m with you Dave. Twitter is not killing the English language. His reasoning for not using Twitter is flawed, perhaps even a self-justified excuse because he doesn’t see value in Twitter. That’s like saying texting is killing the English language. Huh, typing words and letters is killing the English language?
Twitter forces people to write and think succinctly, which is a good thing in my opinion. People get to the point quicker and then back up their points on their blogs or in conversations. IMO, Twitter is an information communication tool on steroids. And, Twitter is what you choose to make of it.
Thanks, Jeff. Ironically, my friend is really in to texting. I’m confused!
Having spent several years working as a sub-editor this is a subject very close to my heart. I have to say that it upsets me to use abbreviations to get my thoughts into 140 characters, and in your friend’s defence I do find that texting allows me to express myself fully and in the gramatically correct fashion.
Personally, however, I agree with both you and Jeff, but I also think your friend has a point. Whilst it may not be affecting our English usage, there is probably a strong argument for the fact that it will have an effect on English usage in the next generation. Whether this will drive us towards a language reminiscent of Clockwork Orange, who knows!
Then again progress is progress and language most move on, as does everything else. Methinks it’s hardly like we all speak Shakespearean English anymore is it, forsooth?
Pete,
I have a hard time with the 140 character limit as well. For me, Twitter works for short, conversational chat or for pointing to other long form content.
Clockwork Organge! Yikes, let’s hope not!
[...] Blogs and tweets? [...]
Have you read any writing from the early 1900’s? How about anything from the 19th century?
We killed the English language long before this pup of 20 read his first Little Critter’s book. Tell him to get over it. We haven’t used proper English in at least 100 years. The English language has been a dead, rotting corpse for a long time. Using Twitter isn’t going to do a thing to it.
hear, hear..perhaps your most eloquent and articulate post. spot on. kudos
a
Confused with Twitter.Com Language?…
I found your entry interesting thus I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog :)…
I am once again viewing Ken Burns’s wonderful PBS documentary series, “The Civil War,” and I despair that the youth - and even adults - of today have forever lost the ability to write. Here is an excerpt from the series, consisting of an introduction, a letter written by a SOLDIER of the time, and a final note. The letter, I think, is beautiful and eloquent and well out of reach of today’s 140-character travesty:
“A week before the battle of Bull Run, Sullivan Beaulieu, a major in the Second Rhode Island Volunteers, wrote home to his wife in Smithfield:
July the 14th, 1861
Washington, D.C.
Dear Sarah,
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow. And lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more.
I have no misgivings about or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American civilization now leans upon the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution, and I am willing, perfectly willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government and to pay that debt.
Sarah, my love for you is depthless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence can break. And yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield.
The memory of all the blissful moments I’ve enjoyed with you come crowding over me, and I feel mostly deeply grateful to God, and you, that I’ve enjoyed them for so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and see our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us.
If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you, nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults, and the many pains that I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish, I have sometimes been.
But, oh Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you in the brightest day and the darkest night. Always, always. And when the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Sarah, do not mourn me dead. Think I am gone and wait for me; for we shall meet again.
. . .
Sullivan Beaulieu was killed a week later, at the first battle of Bull Run.