David Crystal
David Crystal
David Crystal OBE FBA FLSWis a British linguist, academic and author...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionEducator
thinking people way
Academics don't normally manage to alter people's way of thinking through their strength of argument.
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.
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.
moving people different
Language changes and moves in a different direction evolving all the time. Where a lot of people see deterioration, I see expressive development
people choices made
Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.
mean independent people
Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like.
technology people mind
Ever since the arrival of printing - thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people's minds - people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language.
best evidence frequently kids likely literate manipulate people shows spell teaches texting
Likewise, there is no evidence that texting teaches people to spell badly: rather, research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language.
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.
writing issues language
Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it.
kings dad years
As I get older and I get a few more years experience I become more like Dad, you know, King Lear.
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.