John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!!

Slash must be a 2013 thing that lasted for exclusively the duration of this TED talk

He's not saying it's not possible to text in proper English. What he's saying is that you should judge texting the way you judge speech, not writing. Young people aren't idiots. One doesn't text one's boss with the same casualness one would text a peer or a friend, just as you wouldn't SPEAK to your boss the same way you would speak to a peer or a friend. If you do know someone who is doing that then yes, they need to be corrected, but I would bet the majority have more common sense.

Amazing his take on LOL as an emphatic marker !

I've never used "slash", nor have I heard or seen anyone else use it.

Dr. McWhorter is, in my opinion, the best linguistics teacher around. He is really interesting to listen to, and he can teach you a lot. Not only is there linguistic knowledge and expertise in what he says, but there is also wit and knowledge of what is going on in the world in general. I suggest that everyone purchase and read his many books, and also buy the 4 courses he offers as part of the Great Courses series of The Learning Company. You won’t be disappointed. This man has a lot to teach, and he does so with grace, charm and unbridled efficacy.

wut r u tlkng abt m8

he got the “lol” thing so right lol

this is one of the best ted talks i've seen!!

I love how TED talks take huge topics from their respective fields and make them accessible to everyone, like you don't have to be a Linguists to learn from this and I love that.

Linguistics I always thought was about language. To me that also meant communication. Your talk here was about methods of communication and how that impacts our “words”. This talk was about communication moving forward. I am younger than most of (maybe all) of the elected members of our Federal government. I have a decent education. My grandparents were farmers and cowboys. My Nana always said He don’t and she don’t. But she also only had a 6th grade education. She read a learned but that old “he don’t” never left her. My nana also used older terms for many things. Colloquial terms for different times and regions? There is skillet vs. frying pan. To my Nana it was a skillet. Or- spider if it had legs to go over a camp fire. I know my family moved west. Through Ohio, Dakota, Minnesota, Montana. Then in 1930s west ending up in San Bruno near San Francisco. The stories my nana shared were amazing. My family were Scots. Some were sent here as defeated warriors after Culloden (one of the few not killed) and others as indentured servants. Language and stories were important to us.

I also didn't know about "slash". For me, "Slash" is still the guitarist from 'Guns 'n' Roses'.

Thanks for the input.

Very interesting. However, I've never heard of or even used "slash".

I listened to him in a language series on Audible... He looks so different than I thought he did. Still a brilliant man... my fav

Great STUFF! man that was good! I love me some TED talks!

Amazing video!!! Love it so much!!

Never heard of "slash" written out.

I've never heard of slash, that's a situation when you would normally just send the second part as a different text...

Brilliant speaker! I enjoyed the talk very much.

I love the various topics that John pays attention to.