On my mind lately

[firecat]

Internet linguistics. "It was a link to something awesome and it was captioned: 'I have lost all ability to can.'” I love this stuff. And only partly because LOLcat grammar is now likely to pop out of my mouth at inappropriate moments.
http://the-toast.net/2013/11/20/yes-you-can-even/
Are attacks on Internet language related to attacks on selfies? If the claims in this quote are true, then I bet so:

However, what I find most fascinating about the Internet Language is that it is making language less, not more, gendered. Men and women on the Internet use many of the same tropes, enthusiasm markers and emphasizers in order to communicate. In the world of blogging and Internet writing, women are the creators of language. It is a realm in which women are not being socialized with already existing language but are doing the work of socializing and creating a community. Women dominate every important social media platform. Women outnumber men on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest and account for 72% of all social media users. On Tumblr, where the number of men and women is roughly equal, women dominate the conversation.

And then there's this blog post excoriating social media for "destroying the English language" by methods such as ""4. The Fragmentation of the Sacred Sentence Structure"...under a subtitle of "Undefined. No Boundaries. Caffeinated."

Comments

[leafrider.livejournal.com]

It's impossible to "destroy" the English language. Language evolves over time, and the Internet is simply causing it to evolve in unexpected ways. I don't always like what I see happening to it, but I'm old school and I know it, and I also realize it's just me being resistant to change. It seems to me that if we let ourselves, the older we get the more we'll hate the world, unless we allow change and go with the flow.

Of course some of what's going on is just language fads. There were people who thought the hippies destroyed the language, but some of the language they used, if one uses it today, just sounds hokey and dated. It's out of style, and the older forms still exist.

[firecat]

I certainly have my peeves about some changes, and others delight me.

This toy gets at how many words and phrases are fads:
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/12/oed-birthday-words/

[leafrider.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love that. Thanks for the link. :)