Today I attended a talk in Second Life entitled Myths and realities of English on the Internet. It was a re-transmission of a talk presumably given to another audience by David Crystal. I guess the “real” audience was the English Teachers Association of Israel.

This was the first time I have tried to do anything practical in Second Life. I wasn’t the only person who had a little trouble getting the sound loud enough for my liking, but the experience overall was positive. I enjoyed being able to see the audience from the speakers point of view. See below:

But most importantly the ideas seemed fresh and interesting. Crystal’s thesis was that although the internet represents a revolutionary change in communication, its effects on the English language so far have been minimal…people tend to exaggerate some aspects. For example these myths about abbreviations in sms texting:

People have started to abbreviate everything they write. NO – abbreviations are quite a small percentage.

The abbreviations are all newfangled. No – some are hundreds of years old, although lol is new.

Young people don’t know how to spell.  No - they leave out letters because it is cool and fashionable not because they don’t know. The best texters are also the best spellers. They practice more.

He noted that we tend to use both speech and writing as metaphors to talk about communications on the internet. In fact internet communications are radically new and depart from both in some ways:
from speech…. because of delays and the different sense of presence even in videoconferencing. And because in chat we can keep track of many conversations and butt in when we feel like it.
and
from writing…because whatever we write can get straight out into the public domain, without proof reading or editing. And because search puts writers in contact with people who otherwise would never hear about them.