Penn Reps Both Sides Of Twitter Debate
November 1, 2011 at 9:36 am
You've always got old geezers (lookin' at you, Homecoming) lamenting the rapid deterioration of the English language, and yesterday was no different. In this Atlantic article, notable linguist and Penn alum Noam Chomsky duked it out against Penn linguistics prof Mark Liberman.
Chomsky claims that Twitter is the beacon of all things evil, corrupting the English language with its "superficiality [that] draws people away from real serious communication." Meanwhile, back in our town, Liberman notes that despite all the abbrevs and slang, Twitter is in fact improving the language. Citing the DP twitter feed, he notes that the average tweet actually has a greater mean word length than Good Ol' Billy's Hamlet.
On the one hand, we hate when fuddy duddies tell us what we can and cannot do with our own evolving language. Evry1 understandz us just fyne, wrighte? But then again, we're a little skeptical about the calculations that Liberman brings to the table. #doesthiscountasoneword?
Either way, it's worth a read. (Did we mention the overall kicker is that the article itself is written by a Penn alum?)