David Crystal
David Crystal
David Crystal OBE FBA FLSWis a British linguist, academic and author...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionEducator
years together three
It took three years to put Shakespeare's words together, there were a lot of words to be studied and a lot of words to be sorted out, and it proved to be a major project.
children taken kids
Several of us linguists at that time would record our own kids, just to get some data. There was some literature on it then, but no day-by-day, blow-by-blow examples. I recorded all my children over the years in some shape or form. It's what linguists do. You don't talk to a linguist without having what you say taken down and used in evidence against you at some point in time.
people focus anxiety
Text messaging is just the most recent focus of people's anxiety; what people are really worried about is a new generation gaining control of what they see as their language.
phones way messages
Sending a message on a mobile phone is not the most natural of ways to communicate. The keypad isn't linguistically sensible.
reading yield giving
Grammar is what gives sense to language .... sentences make words yield up their meaning. Sentences actively create sense in language. And the business of the study of sentences is grammar.
language internet process
Language itself changes slowly but the internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly.
fun answers bending
In effect we are, bending and breaking the rules of the language. And if someone were to ask why we do it, the answer is simply: for fun
technology people mind
Ever since the arrival of printing - thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people's minds - people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language.
moving people different
Language changes and moves in a different direction evolving all the time. Where a lot of people see deterioration, I see expressive development
style kaleidoscope dialect
At any one time language is a kaleidoscope of styles, genres and dialects.
believe writing exercise
I believe that any form of writing exercise is good for you. I also believe that any form of tuition which helps develop your awareness of the different properties, styles, and effects of writing is good for you. It helps you become a better reader, more sensitive to nuance, and a better writer, more sensitive to audience. Texting language is no different from other innovative forms of written expression that have emerged in the past. It is a type of language whose communicative strengths and weaknesses need to be appreciated.
mean independent people
Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like.
people choices made
Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.
latin greek vacuums
English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background.