Analysis Of John Mcwhorter's Ted Talk

In John McWhorter’s Ted talk “Txting is killing language. JK!!!” he explains how texting is evolving into a new language that is beneficial to our society today. Even though we don’t necessarily use correct grammar or punctuation in our texts and when we talk, we still know what the meaning of the message is. Writing is more of a complex process and required more thought. Texting is a great way to get our ideas and feelings out to somebody in a quick and convenient way. John McWhorter, who is a linguist (a person that can speak many different types of foreign languages) is a linguist teacher at the University of Columbia (CNN Profiles). He has very high knowledge and this makes him a credible source in his area of study that texting makes …show more content…
As the texts progressed, LOL was used almost in every sentence that was given. He also made the audience laugh when he was talking about how people wanted to change the subject while texting. He brought up the fact that people nowadays use the word slash to convey to the person on the other end that he or she wants to change the conversation subject. For example, he showed another string of texts from a guy and a girl. As they were having a conversation, the guy used slash in a sentence to signal that he wanted to change the conversation topic. The abbreviation for laugh out loud is annoying in my opinion and I could relate to McWhorter when he said it was being used as a “pragmatic particle.” LOL can be overused and can be misinterpreted in different contexts if it’s put in the wrong place and replaced for a filler word. The meaning “laugh out loud” shows the other person that they understand the feelings of what the other person is trying to convey. I would much rather see the laugh emoji put at the end of the sentence or a thought to signal that you are laughing instead of using LOL, which can be …show more content…
There will be more abbreviations, more emoticons, and possibly a whole different type of language all together. As McWhorter acknowledges, “if somebody from 1973 looked at what was on a dormitory message board in 1993, the slang would have changed a little bit, but they would understand what was on that message board.” If a person from the same era of 1973 looked at a text message today, they would barley be able to understand it because of how advanced the language is. Texting will keep changing and will become far more advanced within the next decade. People will have to be able to keep up with the demand to be able to stay in the loop. Texting is meant to be quick and convenient and not used like the way we write