David Crystal
David Crystal
David Crystal OBE FBA FLSWis a British linguist, academic and author...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionEducator
people stories well-known
The story of English spelling is the story of thousands of people - some well-known, most totally unknown - who left a permanent linguistic fingerprint on our orthography.
book fall skeletons
Word books traditionally focus on unusual and quirky items. They tend to ignore the words that provide the skeleton of the language, without which it would fall apart, such as 'and' and 'what,' or words that provide structure to our conversation, such as 'hello.
thinking people way
Academics don't normally manage to alter people's way of thinking through their strength of argument.
writing issues language
Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it.
impact long use
Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster.
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.
needs enjoy understood
Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood.
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.
taken down-and used
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.
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.
vocabulary matter building
Vocabulary is a matter of word-building as well as word-using.
different language spread
A feature of English that makes it different compared with all other languages is its global spread.