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>===== Original Message From Mike Stockman <stockman -at- jagunet -dot- com> =====
>Today's illiterate teenagers posting online will, after some education,
>become tomorrow's technical writers. Are they just going to forget the
>jargon, slang, and shortcuts because they're writing documentation? Or is
>some of what they've used their whole lives going to creep in anyway, and
>become acceptable through sheer persistence?
>
>Jargon and slang are added each time major dictionaries are updated... of
>course it changes the way we write as well. That's language for you.
That's exactly my point: the language will change - and changes based on
what's really happening. No one can stop those changes.
Because the Internet is a popular medium of information and communication -
and might eventually incorporate telephone, television, movies, et cetera into
it - it will have a dramatic impact on how people communicate and how they
perceive the language and will force the language to change (and more than
likely, simply some of the more complex aspects of it - don't forget that
English has always been the language of the common people and has always
tended to a simpler form).
"There is fiction in the space between /The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesn't mean / You're not just telling stories"
-Tracy Chapman, Telling Stories
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