A weekly round-up of interesting, weird and useful reads from around the interwebs. In “The wrong kind of Caucasian,” Sarah Kendzior critiques the media for its tendency to demonize an entire country based on the violent acts of a few individuals. [Al Jazeera] “The Internet: A Warning from History,” or how the Internet ruined everything. […]
Texting as a “miraculous thing”: 6 ways our generation is redefining communicationTexting is not a blight on the English language, says linguist John McWhorter in today’s talk, given at TED2013. Rather, texting is a “miraculous thing”: a novel linguistic mode that’s redefining the way we communicate with each other — for the better. McWhorter points out that texting shouldn’t be categorized as written language –but as […]
The linguistic miracle of texting: John McWhorter at TED2013More than 22 million text messages are sent across the world every day … many in truly terrible English. It’s the end of the world as we know it, many decry. The decline and fall of written language means the end for us all, right? Not so fast. Linguist John McWhorter has a great new […]
Coded Meaning: Speakers in Session 8 at TED2013Communication in 2013 looks so different from what it ever has before. Will technology be the ruin of all that is good and true in language? We don’t think so. The speakers in this session explore how the future will bring even greater shifts in how we communicate — and it may well be for […]
LOL is its own language: Q&A with John McWhorterKids these days are “speaking” a new language, right under our noses and literally right under the table. But is texting making us dumber? No, says John McWhorter, Associate Professor at Columbia University and Contributing Editor at The New Republic. In his talk from TED@New York — one of 293 talks given as part of […]
