Those whose panties become twisted at the thought of declining English skills might find this essay instructive and perhaps even elevating:
http://tinyurl.com/2e59m8 It takes a close look at Leetspeak and LOLCats, two evolving linguistic phenomena that owe their existence to computers and the Internet. Brief excerpt: "The great thing about all of this is how we can see new languages forming out of a new medium, and since the pace is abnormally fast, we can watch it evolve over weeks instead of decades. "It also demonstrates how the Internet changes the way we connect and communicate. These words and macros depend on the users manipulating not only the information being passed back and forth, but the format of the codes we agree on to represent the information. Strunk and White would probably be appalled, but then again, maybe not." The kids, of course, are the ones who are becoming fluent in, using, and further articulating these new forms of communication. It's no wonder the rules of grammar and spelling and syntax don't engage them; they're developing their own languages that don't depend on rules. It's worth checking out the various links in the essay too, especially the one to the Wikipedia entry on Leetspeak. What I take away from this is that the old paradigm of language as a means of commmunication that evolves slowly and adheres to a set of fixed rules may be on its way out, to be replaced by a whole new repertory of extraordinarily fluid and creative ways to communicate. As a professional editor who makes my living from the old paradigm being what it is, I have the sense my timing was just right: my knowledge of the rules will not begin to decline in value until after I retire, but before I die, I'll have had just a glimpse of the mind-blowing possibilities of a new paradigm of language.
