Technology and Language

Is modern technology (texting, twitter, the internet in general) changing language?  The answer is yes, within those forms.  Many people don't use complete sentences when composing a text message.  Character limits are one reason for this.  A Twitter post is confined to 140 characters, and to fit a particular message into that, without spilling into a second post, people make sacrifices.  For example, people use shorthand techniques like w/ for the word "with" and the abbreviations made popular by text messaging, like OMG and WTF.

Comment fields on Youtube and other sites are a great place to look if you want to believe that the English language is deteriorating, as well as civility.  These comment fields are basically a mixture of personal attacks written with poor grammar.  An inevitably, at some point, someone will point out another's poor grammar and be called a "Grammar Nazi."  The comments field on Youtube for the video entitled "Slash Solo Godfather Theme" is a perfect example.  The first page is filled with personal attacks such as "Dumb bitch."  And almost nobody capitalized the first letter of a sentence.  But hey, it's the comment field under a guitar solo video, so...

One more interesting thing I found was This page from PBS about language changes over time, mainly verbal.  There is some very interesting stuff in there, like where language changes originate, and what television's role is in language changes.