Conventional wisdom is a wonderful thing and I love the little section on conventional wisdom that Newsweek magazine used to do. Don't get me started on the Newsweek layout change. Conventional wisdom is great...it helps us make sense...only problem is that it is sometimes wrong.
As a teacher I used to cringe (okay still do) when a student misspells a word, especially when it is a word I feel they should know.
So you can imagine how I felt about kids using text speak as a shorthand for written communication. It just seems a bit lazy to me and some of the kids using this new form of communication are still learning the basic rules of spelling.
However last week I read an article (long gone by now :( ) that alluded to text or txt spelling as actually requiring some sophisticated spelling skill. Researchers/linguists who study questions such as "does texting hurt traditional spelling" have been making some interesting findings.
Some are saying it doesn't hurt spelling and it even may help traditional spelling. Like it or not, our language continues to grow and morph and this is one change we need to except. However, we need to remind kids there is a time and place for informal and formal written or "texted" communication.
Below, linguistic expert David Crystal gives his take on this change in language.
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