Are Abbreviations Affecting English and Its Users?

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These days, smart-phones and cellphones have dominated most of our lives. If you look at someone after school or work, you'll see at least one person on their phone, whether it's checking their email, calling a friend or killing some time with Angry Birds. However, you might see someone jabbing at their phone, with their index finger, or both thumbs, and most people know what that the action they're doing is probably what is known as texting. However some people don't appreciate the function of this "texting". They don't dislike texting itself, they just hate the language some texters use. This language includes phrases like "LOL", which means laugh out loud, and "YOLO", which means "you only live once", which drives English language conservatives crazy.Well one of these literary conservatives, John Humphrys', also a British journalist, radio and television presenter released an article in 2007 in the Daily Mail, titled "I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language", states that this new language, the texting language is ruining English, it is ruining the younger generations ability to write, and will affect the future if the English language in a negative way. Humphrys writing style consists of popular beliefs and his own voice in his article, and shows his hatred toward texting. In his controversial article, it is evident he is afraid that the English language may deteriorate into a bunch of emoticons and become a giant mnemonic system due to the large amount of abbreviations. Well is he true? David Crystal, another British writer and lecturer of the English language, with a worldwide reputation and over 100 books to his name, answers that question in an article he wrote on July 15, 2008, headed “2b or not 2b” which was a...

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...t means that all the debates that Humphrys stated are untrue, and texting is not destroying our language, nor negatively affecting it's users and the future of it. Before reading these articles, I believed text messaging was just another form of communicating with someone, but now I believe it is more than just a tool to some people- to people like Humphrys- in which it an enemy they wish to eliminate- as well as other people like Crystal who believe it is a useful to tool to communicate as well as improve your literacy skills. However IMHO, I believe that texting is not negatively affecting English, neither the future of it, nor it's users. For those who oppose my claim,I respectfully disagree, because I believe that nothing, nor anyone is destroying our language; the English language itself keeps changing. Is it right to treat this evolution as a negative aspect?

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