Quote:
Originally Posted by Thierry.C
Lastly, I'll play devil's advocate... Although I globally disagree with the ideas expressed by that guy, I think he stressed out an interesting point: language is perpetually evolving (e.g., SMS), nobody control its evolution, and language is somehow made by itself (i.e., you cannot prevent it from metamorphosing; nothing can resist usage*)
* I'm not sure usage is a good translation of the French usage here. I mean a notion like practice, customs, habits, manners ...
Thierry
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Language is determined by usage, of course. But language is changed slowly by the mass of users, not by one lazy author. (Also: language isn't spelling; recent German spelling reforms, for example, did not change the language at all).
English itself has only changed very slowly over the past several hundred years - books written in 1800 are perfectly readable by modern readers (at least those who are familiar with the vocabulary; we are less horse-centered today).
Texting isn't changing the *language* at all. It may affect the formality of papers submitted by students in high school, of course...but that won't affect the actual language one bit.