Is Texting Actually Advancing Language?
More From This Episode
Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Spoken And Unspoken.
About John McWhorter's TEDTalk
Does texting mean the death of good writing skills? Linguist John McWhorter says that there's much more to texting — linguistically, culturally — than it seems, and it's all good news.
About John McWhorter
Linguist John McWhorter studies language through the lens of social, historical and technological developments. McWhorter teaches at Columbia University and is also a contributing editor at The New Republic and TheRoot.com. He's the author of What Language Is (And What It Isn't and What It Could Be); Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English; and Winning The Race: Beyond The Crisis In Black America.