David Crystal - Texts and Tweets: myths and realities

Professor David Crystal, one of the world's leading linguistic experts, challenges the myth that new communication technologies are destroying language

[@mwxw]

I can't believe how bright and sharp and open minded this old man is. Great speech.

[@sluggo206]

Watching this a decade later in 2021, it's interesting that he says "twittering" (using Twitter) and "a Twitter message", whereas nowadays we'd almost universally say "tweeting" and "a tweet". He does say "tweeting" and "a tweet" in other places, but it seems those terms weren't as widely used then as they are now.

[@compulsiverambler1352]

Talking about "tweeting" and "tweets" sounded too silly to be used in formal contexts back then. Over time, we got so used to hearing them that they stopped making us think of the sounds that birds make, so it stopped sounding silly.

[@xxsweetalkinxx]

Really amazing speech. I enjoyed listening to this. Thank you for uploading

[@MrRedHotChiliAlex]

david came to my college earlier this year - his speech there was undoubtedly as fantastic as this talk is

[@lightmanx5]

This talk by David Crystal is mind boggling! Well done, sir!

[@FinalCurve]

"You can't be cool if you don't know what you're doing."

[@SongsAboutGhost]

story of my life tbh

[@chandrasekhararaovullikant7075]

Extraordinary passionate and the inspiring Legendary Linguist Prof. David Crystal speaking on texting. stimulating and thought provoking. V.Chandra Sekhara Rao

[@plarkmoby]

I've just tweeted this. Brilliant. What a great speaker. Fantastic.

[@Free7ZipDownload]

Very interesting opinions and he's right, tweets and texts are being shortened.

[@Bree420]

Came here for an assignment, but stayed for the personality.

[@MusicJoeyG]

We're doing a module on social media at the moment, I find it really interesting. I find the internet helps me spell.Computers in general help me. I write many of my essays via Word Processor and something I always have at my disposal is instant corrections. That little red line is an instant warning light letting me know something's wrong. The right clicking of that red line is a significant action that acts as a memorising trigger to make the spelling stick in my mind.

[@masmobit]

I like this expert so much... So expert on English language..

[@susideguy]

Brilliant... Just brilliant...

[@26blanco]

good video.thanks

[@oxecharlotte9607]

Very interesting !

[@malbeth]

This is from 2010 as he references his book A Little Book of Language as being his most recent publication. That book was released in the US on June 1st of that year.

[@PierreaSweedieCat]

This would be useful. It is one problem with the net. Rarely is material properly dated, properly referenced, etc. The KZbin stats give an "A and B" date: 28/06/10. So 2010, June, 28. Is when it was posted, but not recorded.

[@sluggo206]

I put "ru" in SMS texts because it's so cumbersome to type on my phone. For "are you" I'd have to press 2 once (ABC), 7 three times (PQRS), 3 twice (DEF), space, 9 three times (WXYZ), 6 three times (MNO), and 8 twice (TUV).

[@kurtreilly]

Errors such as those would not be found in any novel, newspaper, encyclopaedia nor even a magazine, yet they’re appearing in essays and coursework with increasing frequency. It comes from texting, because with texting, it’s acceptable to overgeneralise ‘your’ to mean both the possessive form and the ‘you are’ contraction and the meaning of it will not be lost, the same is true of ‘there’.

[@MultiWeb23]

Also, abbreviations were used all the time in the middle ages to save paper, ink etc. Even the romans before the medieval times abbreviated their texts, so it is a VERY old feature of written language :)

[@kurtreilly]

I agree with Crystal in that it's clear that students can easily avoid their 'texting speech' such as initialisms, number and letter homophones and omission of vowels when writing essays, but what about when the difference between standard and non-standard language is not so obvious?

[@thatprettyreddress]

It's all about how you define destroy. Change is natural and inevitable in everything, including language. He's saying the English is not being destroyed, because, rather, it is evolving. Just as it did when the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans, the Vikings, etc invaded England and added the conglomerate of languages that it is. It is a language with a very interesting and a very interesting future.

[@blizziesantos1]

i tweeted this as well. he has opened my mind.

[@Thecuregalore94]

I do like the fact that he's gone into such detail to balance this arguement, but I find myself a furious prescriptivist and simply cannot sit back and observe incorrect grammar, no matter if it's spoken or written discourse.

[@PhilipsEnglishCafe]

he says 2010 @ 2:52, and this video was uploaded in June of that year.

[@kurtreilly]

I would argue therefore that although texting doesn’t necessarily contribute to an obvious degradation of the English language, it does create a fundamental lack of understanding of certain words among students and is still therefore perversely affecting language.

[@Skuu]

@xrayxd maybe will be in another vid, or wasn't recorded

[@kamalpreetsingh1686]

Very intelligent person.....

[@anonauch8420]

@Antonela Conti - If I heard correctly, he said "Lear"; referencing the titular character of Shakespeare's "King Lear". If not, I have no idea what he's on about. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Lear

[@Dewingo]

David Crystal is like the Gandalf of linguistics!

[@kurtreilly]

This means that subconsciously, because ‘your great’ is universally understood to mean ‘you are great’ for example, it becomes the norm among children and such that ‘your’ is actually understood to mean ‘you are’. Moreover, the fact that it’s a far more subtle error than ‘C U l8r’ as Crystal highlighted, means that it goes unnoticed by students which is why they feel no hesitation in putting it into their schoolwork.

[@laraesque]

Was in chat rooms on Q-Link for Commodore 64 users in 1987 or 1988.

[@Thecuregalore94]

@FowardUntoDawn13 Bar Mitzvah requires capital letters. Oh, and if I haven't mentioned it beforehand, Aaron, it's spelt Forward*.

[@NirshanIbrahim]

I just tweeted this video explaining about twitter.. :)

[@TheMikifer]

Could someone tell me asap. when and where exactly this fascinting show was made. I'm writing a thesis and I need these data to make my reference more precise. Thanks in advance!

[@KenMikkelsen]

His conclusion seems to be that the later Wittgenstein was correct. It is not a case of correct or incorrect grammar. It is a sensitivity to the familiar relationship wherein similar, yet different language games are played.

[@PierreaSweedieCat]

Note that I have had to use abbreviations here. Why? A 500 chr text limit. I tweet to many, and get tweets from many. I also youtube and F/B a lot. I see a lot of it, from very popular people. Before it was a game. Today it is a fact, new fangled, or not. TIME changes everything. And this is very new. It takes little to cause massive change. Consider ancient Hebrew, vs formal English. Their language was highly abbreviated. And hard to understand today. So what of tomorrow?

[@rsaorg]

@malcolmbellamy the podcast of the entire event with audience q&a is available on our website wwwdottheRSAdotorg - hope that helps. Also available to download from itunes. Becca

[@kurtreilly]

Words which are pronounced identically, but ones in which the spelling alters the meaning often create errors in formal written work for students, namely; ‘you’re’, ‘your’, ‘there’, ‘their’ and ‘they’re’. As a student, I notice first-hand that these sorts of words are incredibly problematic for young people and are almost always used incorrectly.

[@respaticondro5905]

who's here for listening class?

[@daniellarhivena819]

Me😀

[@windahanastasia7787]

I was gonna like this comment until I saw your name

[@respaticondro5905]

@@windahanastasia7787 wow, you are so talented at making people sad :"

[@liwainstitut]

monster thing : IN I read: Lord of the Rings. I loved it then Candle in the wind.Some Shakespeare.Dune. But now, it is a nice addition.I mean to reach anyone you had to be postmortem Tolkien.

[@ferdi5407]

I have a personal aversion to "wanna" and "gonna". Are they already accepted in dictionaries? Can i accept them in English assignments submitted by students?

[@allenking746]

Freda Neimann if you are a teacher you should set the standard

[@hurlingpixels]

20:13 Legend has it that Twitter is still "finding its feet".

[@swanky180]

There is a Cognitive Issue in my opinion, Im 20 and let me just say that if I see a long comment or books etc that contains lots of reading my mind sort of blocks it in a sense, I have to make the extra effort to read!!!..so there is an problem cause ik that half my friends have this same issue. We believe that everything must be fast and to the point. No extra. Watching this video to the end was even challenging. Maybe its just Lazy or maybe its because I'm accustomed to seeing things shortcut? idk.....

[@xponen]

I think the change is real. I notice difference between old movie & the new. eg: "Star Trek" of 1979 vs 2013, and "2001: Space Odyssey" (1968) vs "Interstellar" (2014) (old movie put in more filler/scenery that make it longer, vs a more compressed/dense plot from newer movies)

[@SongsAboutGhost]

+Britany Duncan By "cognitive" and "it can't have changed in 20 years" he means there is no scientific biological reason that you should be less capable of reading longer passages than, say, your parents. (D)evolution hasn't taken place. It could well be due to nurture, in that you aren't used to it, but it isn't inherently in your nature

[@1MegAnto]

Hey guys, does anybody knows who is Leo?? He's mentioned at the end of David's mobologue and everybody laughs

[@PierreaSweedieCat]

Consider, also, that my post was broken up in 3 parts. So you will have to read the oldest 1 first. This is the last. I am not saying he is wrong, perhaps by today's stats. But you see, when something becomes common, it becomes common everywhere. And that changes the stats. It is a question of the age of the users. And acceptance comes. Come back and see in 10 years. So his theory may or may not be right. We simply cannot tell. Tomorrow will tell.

[@Thecuregalore94]

@FowardUntoDawn13 Not really mate. I suggest you search the definition of 'linguistic prescriptivist' on this thing we call the internet.

[@liwainstitut]

Origin of crystalized as i see him froozen after I hit pause ? By the way could anyone help us around HIT PAUSE ?

[@WubstepUK]

It sucks, but it's necessary.

[@vertigo001]

dmn i thgt i ws smrt :(

[@Nisstyre56]

Scientific theories don't have to be about inanimate objects, or just physics for that matter. Psychology, cognitive science, and linguistics are all sciences.

[@Cambreath]

He has a beard beyond epic.

[@AndrewQW86]

There are times when we meet realities, and we find them in various forms of hell. A 7-year-old boy greets his mother at breakfast to notice that her face is swollen, badly bruised by the husband's punches last night. A 5-year-old girl watches her father leave the house in silence, ... facebook.com/AndrewLimKB/posts/10151130717068367

[@sahouraa100]

Is there are a transcript for this video?

[@Mecklybver]

destroying language? that's ridiculous. Languages are ever changing and you can notice that how pronunciation changes from generation to generation. Why should we speak as our forefathers?

[@TheMumfordBoy]

Stephen Fry and he need to go talk the shit out of people!

[@Nisstyre56]

What about it? Are you arguing that we should have a strict set of rules that limits everyone to a particular variety of English?

[@drumrave9177]

youtube only gives me 500 characters to type with.

[@teresajohnson1352]

🥂🍾❤👏👏👏👏👏

[@Thecuregalore94]

@FowardUntoDawn13 Aaron, as long as I'm not drunk I will pronounce my T's and T-H's like Prince Charles himself. I am quite the prescriptivist mate, (can I say mate or will the Queen have me shot?) my attitude towards poor spelling and grammar is violent. You know this yourself. To be a prescriptivist, you actually only need to believe that all linguistics must make sense and be written correctly. To speak Queen's English is outdated and frankly quite ridiculous.

[@Thecuregalore94]

@FowardUntoDawn13 Aaron...The definition of a prescriptivist is someone who believes in correct grammar, spelling, pronounciation and syntax. You could be a working class bricklayer from Leytonstone and still be a prescriptivist.

[@breeliah]

ahahahahahahahah

[@chdwwk2]

I concur. I'm GenY, I'm a bookworm and dismiss Twitter.

[@oxxxydimon7524]

ti 72 tut buv dimasik

[@cradleofalex]

is you is or is you ain't...

[@MusicJoeyG]

Is he a wizard? o.o