Nice to Tweet you

In this modern age of technological wizardry it seems as if we spend half our lives in the virtual world of social media. With the possibilities seemingly endless and millions of people just a click away it is no wonder that social networking is at the forefront of this technological revolution. Perhaps the most powerful player in this new and evolving industry is Twitter. With some 645 million registered users and a whopping 500 million tweets sent everyday it is no wonder that Twitter is taking control of social media. With so many 'tweeters' sharing thoughts, experiences and ideas every second it is undoubtedly a spectacular opportunity to take a closer look at the difference in language use between its users, more specifically between its male and female users. Is there really a difference in the way the genders use language on twitter?

Firstly let's take a look at differences in male and female language use, a subject on which much has been written and explored. Though arguably out of date and somewhat inaccurate Robin Lakoff's studies into female language provide some interesting observations that can still be seen today. Such an example would be her proposal that women tend to use more intensifiers as well as having a special lexicon with more words for certain things than men for example a man may say "It's good to see you" whereas according to Lakoff a woman would say "It really is so lovely to see you" evidently showing some difference in language use of males and females.

Further investigation into the differences of language use have also been done by Deborah Tannen who summarised six main contrasts between how males and females use language, the most relevant to tweets being 'Information vs Feelings'. According to Tannen males are likely to use language to convey useful information whereas females will use language to express feelings. This may be able to be seen in tweets as men will tweet about information such as "Just been for a run" whereas women will tweet their emotions and feelings. So that's the effect that gender appears to have on language but how has the internet affected language use?

Although the internet is relatively new it has already developed its own lexis and language style. Acronyms such as 'LOL' and 'YOLO' are now frequent in all different forms of language. Even Twitter has developed its own language. This is mainly because of its renowned 140 character limit which has led to ellipsis and abbreviations becoming regularly used weapons in the battle to remain below that vital limit. David Crystal even goes as far as saying "the 140-character limit of Twitter is changing our ways of thinking."

With both gender and the internet having such drastic effects on the language we use it's no wonder that tweets on Twitter are barely recognisable from what has been familiar as recently as in the last decade. Who knows what the future holds.

By Jamie Barber

How do children learn to speak?

It’s always as special moment when a child produces their first word, but how do they reach this point? Children learn through imitating what they hear around them everyday, whether it is animal noises, their parents speaking or sounds from the television. Soon enough, the uninterpretable babbles turn to clearly formed words, and these words soon form phrases.

There are many different theories surrounding the language of young children, as well as how their language develops. There are the more whacky theories, such as Chomsky’s theory of language acquisition devices, whereby every human has knowledge of grammatical rules common to all languages pre-programmed into them. There are also theories that are easier to understand such as the learning perspective. Skinner argued that adults shape the speech of children by reinforcing the babbling of infants that sound most like words, by doing this, we encourage the child to repeat the babble and develop it further until it becomes more and more like the word the adult felt it was similar to.

Why is language important for your child?

Language will allow your child to communicate with others, learn, build friendships, and make sense of the world around them. Later on, a weaker understanding and fluency of language may hold your child’s education back, slowing their progress. Therefore, providing your child with a developed vocabulary and understanding of grammar could help them be successful in their future

So how can you help your child learn to speak?

Talking to your child, and babbling back to them encourages your child to respond. The more they babble the more their language will develop. In a recent study, psychologists from Stanford University discovered that the more a parent or carer talks or babbles to their child the faster their language and vocabulary grow.

Reading with your child exposes them to more vocabulary, but also begins to show them the links between pictures and text. As your child gets older they can read to you, and if reading has been part of a child’s routine since a young age it is less likely to be a chore when they begin school.

If your child starts a conversation through talking, gesture or behavior, respond to it, making sure you stick to the topic your child started. This will help to teach your child about relevance within a conversation, a tool useful for their future.

Introduce new vocabulary to you child frequently. Use toys to allow your child to associate words with objects, for example teach them the names of animals using farmyard toys. This process will also develop their motor skills if they choose the animal themselves. Children learn best through play so why not have fun but increase their vocabulary at the same time?

 

http://languagedevelopment.tripod.com/id15.html

http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/21820_C01.pdf

Lucy Bassett

Sexism

A father and a son are in a horrible car accident that kills the dad. The son is rushed to hospital; just as he's about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, "I cannot operate this boy is my son!" why is it that most people reading this would assume that the surgeon is a man? It seems that women have always been referred to as the 'weaker' sex, they have always had the 'less' important jobs. Even this riddle shows us that 'man' is considered the norm. But why can't a woman do what a man does?

Even from the beginning the etymology of women is sexist; it is a compound of wife and man. In fact it suggests a female servant. This shows us that women cannot even have their own word without it having an emphasis on men or being downgrading towards what some see as a woman's role.  As well as this the use of the male pronoun 'mankind' makes me wonder why the human race is not called womankind. There are just as many women in the world. But doesn't this simply suggest the patriarchy society we live in?

Sexism starts from a young age. As children, it is normal for girls and boys to play with toys 'appropriate' to their gender. Parents bring marketing gender into their child's life as soon as they're born. They choose to let girls follow the footsteps of mum and let boys help dad. Maybe this is the reason jobs are stereotyped, maybe this is why women are restricted in their work force. If a man was to enter a room and say he was a nurse, people would judge him simply because this is seen as a 'woman's' job.  A job which has a lower status, in the public eye the man should be a doctor, the one with higher authority. There are many examples of this and there are many jobs or hobbies which women are unable to do because it is not seen as 'right'.

Sexism doesn't only happen in the work place, connotations of words also degrade women. Many words used to describe men suggest power and toughness. For example a man can be called master but the opposite of this for a woman suggests a lower status. If a woman is called a mistress, it has the connotations of affairs and prostitution.

I believe people should be more politically correct when talking about women, the way people speak about women  I find insulting, being a woman myself I hate it when people make sly comments such as 'those woman drivers' what does this achieve? I hope there is a solution to the male dominated society we live in, and even though women have come such a long way I still don't believe men and women are equal. Is there a solution and if so what is it?

By Calista Woods

Development 2 Interaction: The Language of Two Year Olds.

When a child says their first word, they begin to learn that they will get praised and rewarded for doing so. This starts them on a journey of learning and developing their language and soon they learn how they can use this to interact with others.

Let’s skip ahead to when the child has reached the age of two. At this point, they’re probably running around and letting out full blown sentences to tell the people around them what would make them happy, not that these sentences always make sense to anyone other than family. Not only do two year olds understand practically every word you say, they also take in a lot of it. Their internal word bank is reaching fifty and growing rapidly. Three or four word sentences become five or six words and pronouns are starting to be introduced. By this stage, the young one is very aware of the concept of “mine” and this shows in the way they ask for things; “I want to see my mummy”, or “Juice is mine, daddy”. This development, while maybe creating havoc for parents who have to teach their child that not everything belongs to them, is a vital stage that the child needs to go through to further their understanding of the language and how to use it efficiently.

(Source: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/toddler/Pages/Language-Development-2-Year-Olds.aspx)

Two years is a milestone in a child’s social development. At two, they really begin to branch out from their parents to search for children of their own or similar ages to interact with. They don’t often want to be around adults and who can blame them? At that age, adults are big, scary creatures that are a lot louder than them and are very intimidating. All toddlers are different of course, some will babble on and on to strangers about their newest toy or what they’re doing but in most cases, children want to stick with other children and their mummies and daddies. Meeting a host of older people can be very overwhelming for young children but they’ll soon learn that these people aren’t scary monsters and soon enough, they’ll be chattering away to them like they do with their family at home.

(Source: http://www.babycenter.com/0_toddler-milestone-socialization_11742.bc)

There are debates about whether or not a child’s ability to vocalise and learn language is a consequence of nature or nurture. The Learning approach in Psychology, suggests that language is learnt in children through the imitation of what they hear their parents or siblings saying (which explains why children end up occasionally swearing at people). Famous psychologist, Skinner, agrees with this point of view and states that through positive reinforcements and rewards, children learn that verbalising their wants and needs is a good thing and therefore they do it more often. On the other hand, ‘Nativist’ psychologists such as Chomsky, claim that all humans are born with the innate ability to learn and develop their language without influence from imitation or parental rewards.

(Source: http://www.decodedscience.com/first-language-acquisition-development-theories-nature-vs-nurture/7247)

By Emily-Rose Cordingley

If u cn rd ths thn wats th prblm??!

Whether you are a technophobe or a technophile you will be aware of 'text-speak' – the lexical and grammatical choices that are made in text messaging.  And doubtless even if it falls outside of your personal interest you will be aware of the debate surrounding it. Some believe that texting and more specifically text-speak is breaking down language and destroying the grammar of young people, making it near impossible for them to function in society without it. Others are of the opinion that it is in fact helping to progress language by developing it into something new. Can it truly be as bad as the critics make it out to be?

The phenomenon of texting truly began in 1998 when it became possible to send messages between networks. Due to the cumbersome keys that we all remember from earlier phone models a number of abbreviations came into existence to speed up and shorten the texts sent.

This is seen as a major point against text-speak – that the alternate graphology is affecting people's ability to spell correctly. But if this is the case then English itself should already be irreparable, as the popular initialism IOU has been in documented use from the early 1600's.  Latin inscriptions from the Roman era have been shown to contain abbreviations, and it is hard to dispute the accomplishments that they made, and that some of their lexis is embedded within our own language today, despite not writing words and phrases out in full.

Although David Crystal has referenced the fact that the majority of text messages are now without abbreviations the stereotype still lives on. It is found to be a cause of great concern for many teachers who feel that the act of compressing speech into texts is causing problems with their student's ability to write in grammatically and punctually correct sentences. But is texting actually having a detrimental effect on the grammar and critical writing of young people?

Dr Beverly Plester believes that while messaging is not helping children to achieve, the use of text-speak is in fact improving the verbal understanding and spelling skills of today's young people. Research she has done shows strong positive links between text-speak and having success in English language. This is because the abbreviations are created and used too fast to follow. If they are not used in the correct context, or the abbreviation contains a misspelling then people will find their peers unable to understand them. Putting the thought into their communication has helped to give students a more personally relevant understanding of grammar.

All of this shows that while we may need to continue to update the dictionary of abbreviations (the first being published in 1942) in the near future it looks as though the arguments in favour of text-speak can be refuted. Abbreviations have found their place in modern society, and despite my hatred of YOLO and confusion over some intitalisms I think the absence of text-speak would be felt. More research will doubtless be done into the benefits and harm but in the meantime I'm sure you can research all the terms you don't recognise, lest you get left behind by the new phase to modern English.

 IYKWIM.

By Aimee Mathers

physiotherapy. terminology. gibberish.

physiotherapy. terminology. gibberish.

"90% of people worldwide don't understand terminology used by physios"

That wasn't entirely true but we can go with it, for now at least. The actual figure can't be that far off if my inklings are correct.

Let's step away from assumptions and statistics for a minute or two. Take a quick look at some terms I selected from a glossary at random:

·         Cryotherapy

·         Metatarsalgia

·         Vasocontriction

If you have a chance grab a piece of paper and scribble down what you think the terms mean, you'll be able to compare it with the official definitions which are located at the end of this post. You'll be able to see how close or far off you are. Most important of all, don't cheat. Why you might ask, because cheaters never prosper in life.

Unless you're a physiotherapist, studying physiotherapy or aware of medical terminology and all of that jazz these terms will mean absolutely nothing to you at all. Allow me to educate you on medical language. I promise to make it as interesting as possible.

The majority of medical terminology has Latin and Greek origins. In fact Greek makes up three-fourths of medical terminology. Latin, French and Italian are the final pieces to the puzzle. Greek is used for clinical terminology such as: cardiology, gastritis. Latin for anatomical terminology such as: ventriculus, cor and ren and French for anything else, examples are massage, plaque. Italian for anything else, some examples are: varicella and influenza. Latin was the language of science up until the beginning of the 19^th century until the English took over (like they always do).

Origins aside medical terminology is complete jargon; the physio essentially builds a wall between them and the patient. On purpose no, but it happens. This creates obstacles between the two because as stated in this article I stumbled upon in the Telegraph "patients thought that a chronic condition meant serious rather than persistent." This power subconsciously created leaves the patient out of the loop and further problems can arise as if rheumatoid arthritis isn't bad enough!

Physios are aware of this and have paved the way for terminology to be understood by patients. If you go onto whichever web browser you use and search: The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. There is a section on the webpage dedicated to your health, it has simplified conditions and explained them in language that is understandable, one of many ways physiotherapists moderate language for the layperson.

Although this was short I hope it helped you all to figure out a way to understand medical language as a whole, if you're unsure of it Google is always around (for moral support) and the answers should pop right up!

 

Cryotherapy – Ice therapy. The use of ice and ice water in the treatment of injury.

Metatarsalgia - A vague term for pain in the region of the Metatarsal bones of the foot.

Vasoconstriction - A physiological decrease in the diameter of small blood vessels.

Rachel-Lee Allen

Politics and Rhetoric

Rhetoric aims to improve the ability for a writer or speaker to persuade or motivate an audience. The Greek philosopher Aristotle described it as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion".

There are many different rhetorical devices which have been well known since Ancient Greece. An extremely common rhetorical device is Hyperboles. This is where the speaker exaggerates to emphasise a point, an example of this is "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse".

Another device is repetition where the speaker repeats a word or phrase to make a point. This is to show how important the point is to the speaker. His was shown by Margaret Thatcher when she said "No, no, no."

A metaphor is a device where two things are compared to show a likeness between them. An example of this is "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent" - Sir Winston Churchill. A simile also compares two things which share a likeness however it uses the word "like" rather than a more direct comparison found in a metaphor. An analogy is also very similar to a metaphor and a simile but it is usually longer and more thoroughly explains a thought process.

An antithesis is where two contrasting phrases are deliberately used in consecutive phrases in order to make a point. An example of this is "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools" - Martin Luther King, Jr.

A rhetorical question is a question made that is meant to make a point rather than elicit an answer. This was shown in Ed Milibands leader speech in 2012 when he said "And why do we succeed?"

An expletive is a device used to interrupt normal speech in order to emphasise the words preceding or succeeding it. An example of this is "And this city - this Golden City which is both ancient and youthful - stands as a living monument to your unconquerable spirit." - Barack Obama

Winston Churchill is well known for his speeches which often contained rhetorical devices. The most famous was his use of Anaphora in We Shall Fight them On the Beaches. Anaphora is the repetition of specific words at the beginning of successive phrases. An example of this is "We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender".

These features are extremely common amongst political speeches as politicians need to emphasise their points in order to persuade, motivate and inform the audience to win their support and votes. These features have remained a part of speeches for centuries which shows their importance and their effectiveness. In my examples of the different rhetorical devices I used quotes from several different politicians from different time periods to show their continued use.


Sources:
http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm
http://www1.dcsdk12.org/secondary/dchs/docs/648997.pdf
http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/newsat/powertactics/readingpsgs/chapter2section2.rhtml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/3634292/So-what-does-make-a-great-political-speech.html
http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric.htm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric


Samuel Hampson

500 word blog post by Amie Briggs

But it's English?

America and the UK are said to be 'two nations divided by a common language'  but have you ever watched an American TV show or a film and wondered why their 'English' is so different to ours? If there are so many differences, shouldn't it just be referred to as American instead of American English? It's something I seem to question a lot! 

So I started researching and interestingly I discovered that Britain started to colonise North America around about the 18th century and of course took our English language over there with us. However, that doesn't answer why the language differs in so many ways between America and Britain so I did some further research.

Until the 18th century there was no standardised forms of the English language until dictionaries were written in Britain in 1755 by Samuel Johnson and in America by Noah Webster in 1828. As these were essentially new books, the writers decided the spellings hence the differences perhaps between our language and America. So that explains a lot, huh? 

There are differences in spoken language (the accents) as well as written language. In Britain we pronounce Aluminium like /^lumini:um/ but Americans lose the /I:/ sound to make it /æluminum/ despite the same spelling. BUT then there is the opposite kind of change between English and American English in which two words such as 'colour' (UK) and 'color' (US) are spelled the same and are pronounced the same verbally! An explanation for the difference between American English and English in terms of accent in is that around the 18th century non-rhotic (less emphasis on the pronunciation of the /r/ sound) accents were used by those who had gained a higher status to separate them from other classes. Whereas contrary to what I expected, American English has changed far less hence their continued rhotic accent – however New York and Boston, who were more influenced by Britain in the revolutionary war, take on a less rhotic accent.

Looking further into some differences between the languages some of them do make sense due to the difference in culture between the UK and America, such as schooling differences. If you have ever watched an American film involving school then I'm sure that you too have been confused about what they mean when they talk about their different stages in school. Over here, we have a pretty simple schooling structure from primary to junior to secondary and then on to college. Within the UK schooling starts from year 1 in primary school at around 5 years old up to year 13 around 18 years old in college. However America has a different structure ranging from elementary school up to middle school and then high school which ranges from ages 14-18! 

American English and English also use the same words but in different contexts, just to cause even more confusion! For example, we use the term 'bill' as in receiving a letter requesting money that you have spent but America use the term as in a 'dollar bill' (what we know as a note). Interestingly, this has caused a lot of confusion in the past and famously in an account from Winston Churchill in a meeting between America and the UK the term 'bring it to the table' was discussed meaning for concerns to be brought up in the meeting. However, American members of the meeting thought that this meant for their issues to be 'put to the side' which caused an argument! So wouldn't it just be so much easier if our languages were identical? 


Sources 
http://classicalgeek.hubpages.com/hub/why-do-americans-speak-english

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_British_English


By Amie-Jane Briggs

Baby-talk, Babble and Baby Books

Baby-Talk, Babble and Baby Books

by Laura Crean

 

Have you ever noticed how babies and toddlers seem to love books but when you try to read to them they have such a short attention span that you can never finish even the shortest of stories?  They seem to love the bright, colourful pictures and the sound of your voice (and their own), especially when you are reading in rhyme, but they don't seem to be very interested in the story.  They soon decide to either eat the book or wriggle off your lap to explore something else in their immediate vicinity. So is children's literature relevant for babies and can they actually learn anything useful during story-time?

 

Firstly, what is baby-talk?  Baby-talk is sometimes referred to as motherese (a term coined by Elissa Newport in her studies in the 1970s), which so as not to exclude fathers began to be referred to as fatherese, parentese or caregiver language.  However it is generally known by child development experts and linguists as child-directed speech or CDS (as opposed to standard adult-directed speech).  It is a very informal speech register that adults use specifically with very young children and has many distinguishing features; It consists of a mixture of meaningless sounds like "goo-goo, ga-ga", family specific words like "num-num" or "ba-ba" (and variations of) for things like the baby's dummy or bottle and some words that can be traditionally recognized such as "beddy-bye" for bed-time or other familiar parts of a baby's routine.  It also consists of diminutive forms such as "doggy, horsy, ducky" etc.  Many of the words used in baby talk have onomatopoeic properties as well as alliteration and other repetitive patterns of sound like "wee-wee, dum-dum or teeny-weeny."  David Crystal calls these types of words in children's literature "sound symbolic words" and Elinor Payne et al. also looked at the "Rhythmic modification in child directed speech" how rhythmic properties of adult speech varies when addressing children rather than adults.

 

Linguists recognise that the phonology of CDS demonstrates a slower rate of speech, with clearer pronunciation, higher pitch, longer and more pauses between phrases and sentences and exaggerated intonation and stress.  Lexis shows a simpler vocabulary with a much more restricted or limited range of words, usually nouns, objects within the child's own environment, such as the examples given above: doggy, num-num etc.  David Crystal calls the stage where children start to repeat these words as the 'holophrastic stage.' CDS has a form of grammar that uses much simpler constructions, shorter and less complex utterances, frequent use of imperatives, repetition, questions and the use of personal names rather than pronouns, for example "Mummy" not "I" or "Daddy" or "Doggy" instead of "him/he" etc.

 

Take a look at this rather cute video of a mother using child directed speech with her twin baby boys.  You can see how often she asks questions and uses imperatives (especially when one of the boys keeps smacking his brother!)  She uses lots of repetition and higher pitch, pauses, exaggerated intonation and stress etc.  And look how well the boys are responding using a clear turn-taking style of conversation with their mummy, which is another very important skill in any language.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00bShUHVHrw

 

As you can see from this ages and stages guide: http://www.talkingpoint.org.uk/sites/talkingpoint.org.uk/files/stages-speech-language-development-chart001.pdf

babies' speech and language development is so important and from birth babies are listening, responding to and learning from adults all the time.  And they learn at a phenomenal rate.  Reading with babies is another way to really stimulate babies' speech and language development using child-directed speech.  Here is another very cute example:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSCXMfeo74Q

 

The video shows how keeping the baby's attention during story time is more about how you speak to him than the story itself.  His mother uses lots of questions to ask him about what is going on in the pictures and the book has flaps and surprises so that those questions can be explored together, leading to more things to talk about.  It is the interaction between mother and baby that is important.  She uses lots of exaggerated facial expressions as well as intonation and stress to really highlight the language she wants him to pay attention to.  And he obviously loves it.  Well who doesn't love Spot?

 

So you can see that baby-talk or child-directed speech isn't just a silly way to talk to babies.  It provides a good base for language acquisition; word recall through repetition helps babies to form mental representations and leads to similar patterns in babbling.  It gives positive attention which helps babies bond with adults, helping them feel secure and aiding emotional development.  It provides the beginnings of turn taking, an important conversation skill, which along with smiling and other facial expressions is good for face recognition and social development too and when used during story time makes a fun introduction to early literacy.

 

References

 

"Baby-talk" Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_talk

"Motherese" Glottopedia -  http://www.glottopedia.org/index.php/Motherese

 

Alan Gardiner - English Language As and A2 Revision Express, 2008 – pg 140-141 "How Adults Speak  

                                                                                                                                                   to Children"

David Crystal - http://www.davidcrystal.com/home

David Crystal's Theory on Child Language Acquisition - https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/chomsky/

David Crystal Pg253 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language – second edition

 

Elinor Payne et al. - http://oro.open.ac.uk/21153/2/17_Payne_et_al-OWP.pdf.

                                                        

Language on le Internet

By Jamie Ford

Most language online is so confusing (with no explanation) that we begin to question our very existence. For example, the use of 'le' rather than 'the' in the title of this blog post is just something people do online with no real reason. This non-standard form of language is just an example of all the weird and whacky dialect used on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.

Each site has its own sociolect because of the users and the people that follow them. Facebook users are usually friends with family members so tone down the internet jargon. Twitter is a place for you to follow your friends and celebrities so is a tad more accepting of confusing passages. Tumblr, however, is a place where internet slang is born and raised before being released into the deep dark vortex of the rest of the internet.

I'm not saying that Tumblr isn't a dark void that will devour your soul like the rest of the internet, it is, but it's the place where language on the internet stems from (except YOLO, Twitter can keep that).

What is Tumblr I hear you ask? Tumblr is a place where anybody can be whoever they want, say whatever they want and post whatever they. There are also many parts of Tumblr ranging from the multi-fandoms to fan-blogs to blogs about trees and Starbucks cups which are way too Tumblr to even be on Tumblr.

Language in these realms of Tumblr varies greatly just like the different realms of the internet. Verbs like 'shipping' (putting two people into a relationship which wouldn't canonically happen) and expressions of emotion such as 'asdfghjkl' (internet speak for 'I don't know how to put my emotions into words so I'm just going to smash my face into the keyboard) are commonplace on a site like Tumblr. 'The feels' or 'I can't even' are also a Tumblrites way of expressing their emotions to other socially ambiguous users. 'asdfghjkl' has very similar roots as 'hnnng' which is when you find something very desirable but can't put it into words.

As we well know, any internet trend can become insanely popular very quickly. For example, 'The Dress', The Ice Bucket Challenge and 'Alex from Target' have all been trends on twitter, Tumblr and everywhere in-between for numerous weeks these past twelve months. Before that, YOLO was a thing that we now all regret and, as David Crystal puts it, "It spreads like wildfire".

Crystal also says "Language itself changes slowly but the internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly." This has become evident on Tumblr in many ways. An example which is rather rare now because of the constant changes of internet language is the lack of the letter 'e' in words. Because you'd expect Tumblr to be spelt 'Tumbler', some users thought it would be funny to take the 'e' out of letters. Although this was when Tumblr was first starting out and you get threatened with being burnt at the stake now if you spell something wrong no matter how intentional it may or may not be.

Personally, I love that millions of people across the world can communicate with each other through these intricate words that nobody over the age of thirty understands. I love the intimacy that the language of Tumblr provides to express emotion without being too emotional. The abundance of puns on the internet that we all hate but secretly love. Finally, I love the way that language changes and when we are all over thirty, internet language will have changed completely and that we will be ridiculed for using such old language like we ridicule our parents today for their weird language. However, the one thing I don't like is abbreviations. Abbreviations can GTFO!